Systems and methods for adaptively scanning for wireless communications

ABSTRACT

This application is directed to systems and methods for adaptively scanning for wireless communications. Scan data associated with scanning one or more wireless network channels based upon a scan pattern is received. Each wireless channel has a designation of primary or secondary with at least one channel having the secondary designation. A determination is made as to whether anomalous activity is present on a selected wireless channel designated as secondary. If anomalous activity is determined to be present, at least one scanning parameter of the selected channel is altered.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to, and incorporates by reference inits entirety for all purposes, commonly assigned provisional U.S. PatentApplication Ser. No. 60/464,464, filed Apr. 21, 2003, entitled “SYSTEMSAND METHODS FOR NETWORK SECURITY”.

BACKGROUND

The present invention is directed to systems and methods for securingwireless computer networks. More specifically, without limitation, thepresent invention relates to systems and methods for adaptively scanningfor wireless communication.

The Internet is a global network of connected computer networks. Overthe last several years, the Internet has grown in significant measure. Alarge number of computers on the Internet provide information in variousforms. Anyone with a computer connected to the Internet can potentiallytap into this vast pool of information.

The information available via the Internet encompasses informationavailable via a variety of types of application layer informationservers such as SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol), POP3 (Post OfficeProtocol), GOPHER (RFC 1436), WAIS, HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol,RFC 2616) and FTP (file transfer protocol, RFC 1123).

One of the most wide spread methods of providing information over theInternet is via the World Wide Web (the Web). The Web consists of asubset of the computers connected to the Internet; the computers in thissubset run Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) servers (Web servers).Several extensions and modifications to HTTP have been proposedincluding, for example, an extension framework (RFC 2774) andauthentication (RFC 2617). Information on the Internet can be accessedthrough the use of a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI, RFC 2396). A URIuniquely specifies the location of a particular piece of information onthe Internet. A URI will typically be composed of several components.The first component typically designates the protocol by which theaddress piece of information is accessed (e.g., HTTP, GOPHER, etc.).This first component is separated from the remainder of the URI by acolon (‘:’). The remainder of the URI will depend upon the protocolcomponent. Typically, the remainder designates a computer on theInternet by name, or by IP number, as well as a more specificdesignation of the location of the resource on the designated computer.For instance, a typical URI for an HTTP resource might be:

http://www.server.com/dir1/dir2/resource.htm

where http is the protocol, www.server.com is the designated computerand /dir1/dir2/resouce.htm designates the location of the resource onthe designated computer. The term URI includes Uniform Resource Names(URN's) including URN's as defined according to RFC 2141.

Web servers host information in the form of Web pages; collectively theserver and the information hosted are referred to as a Web site. Asignificant number of Web pages are encoded using the Hypertext MarkupLanguage (HTML) although other encodings using SGML, eXtensible MarkupLanguage (XML), DHMTL or XHTML are possible. The publishedspecifications for these languages are incorporated by reference herein;such specifications are available from the World Wide Web Consortium andits Web site (http://www.w3c.org). Web pages in these formattinglanguages may include links to other Web pages on the same Web site oranother. As will be known to those skilled in the art, Web pages may begenerated dynamically by a server by integrating a variety of elementsinto a formatted page prior to transmission to a Web client. Webservers, and information servers of other types, await requests for theinformation from Internet clients.

Client software has evolved that allows users of computers connected tothe Internet to access this information. Advanced clients such asNetscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer allow users toaccess software provided via a variety of information servers in aunified client environment. Typically, such client software is referredto as browser software.

Electronic mail (e-mail) is another wide spread application using theInternet. A variety of protocols are often used for e-mail transmission,delivery and processing including SMTP and POP3 as discussed above.These protocols refer, respectively, to standards for communicatinge-mail messages between servers and for server-client communicationrelated to e-mail messages. These protocols are defined respectively inparticular RFC's (Request for Comments) promulgated by the IETF(Internet Engineering Task Force). The SMTP protocol is defined in RFC821, and the POP3 protocol is defined in RFC 1939.

Since the inception of these standards, various needs have evolved inthe field of e-mail leading to the development of further standardsincluding enhancements or additional protocols. For instance, variousenhancements have evolved to the SMTP standards leading to the evolutionof extended SMTP. Examples of extensions may be seen in (1) RFC 1869that defines a framework for extending the SMTP service by defining ameans whereby a server SMTP can inform a client SMTP as to the serviceextensions it supports and in (2) RFC 1891 that defines an extension tothe SMTP service, which allows an SMTP client to specify (a) thatdelivery status notifications (DSNs) should be generated under certainconditions, (b) whether such notifications should return the contents ofthe message, and (c) additional information, to be returned with a DSN,that allows the sender to identify both the recipient(s) for which theDSN was issued, and the transaction in which the original message wassent.

In addition, the IMAP protocol has evolved as an alternative to POP3that supports more advanced interactions between e-mail servers andclients. This protocol is described in RFC 2060.

The various standards discussed herein by reference to particular RFC'sare hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. TheseRFC's are available to the public through the Internet Engineering TaskForce (IETF) and can be retrieved from its Web site(http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html). The specified protocols are not intendedto be limited to the specific RFC's quoted herein above but are intendedto include extensions and revisions thereto. Such extensions and/orrevisions may or may not be encompassed by current and/or future RFC's.

A host of e-mail server and client products have been developed in orderto foster e-mail communication over the Internet. E-mail server softwareincludes such products as sendmail-based servers, Microsoft Exchange,Lotus Notes Server, and Novell GroupWise; sendmail-based servers referto a number of variations of servers originally based upon the sendmailprogram developed for the UNIX operating systems. A large number ofe-mail clients have also been developed that allow a user to retrieveand view e-mail messages from a server; example products includeMicrosoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger, andEudora. In addition, some e-mail servers, or e-mail servers inconjunction with a Web server, allow a Web browser to act as an e-mailclient using the HTTP standard.

As the Internet has become more widely used, it has also created newrisks for corporations. Breaches of computer security by hackers andintruders and the potential for compromising sensitive corporateinformation are a very real and serious threat.

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) offer a quick and effectiveextension of a wired network or standard local area network (LAN). FIG.1 depicts a typical LAN 190 including both wired and wirelesscomponents. The wired component depicted in FIG. 1 includes a variety ofconnected systems including local servers 120, local clients 130 andnetwork accessible data storage components 110. By simply installingaccess points 180A, 180B to the wired network (e.g., Ethernet 150 androuter 140), personal computers and laptops equipped with WLAN cards170A, 170B can connect with the wired network at broadband speeds.

Over the last few years, most deployments of WLANs have conformed to theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11bstandard that operates over the unregulated 2.4 GHz frequency spectrum.The 802.11b standard offers connectivity of up to 11 Mbps—fast enough tohandle large e-mail attachments and run bandwidth-intensive applicationslike video conferencing. While the 802.11b standard now dominates theWLAN market, other variations of the 802.11 standard, such as 802.11a,802.11g, and supporting standards such as 802.1X, are being developed tohandle increased speeds and enhanced functionality. WLAN vendors havecommitted to supporting a variety of standards. The various 802.11standards developed by the IEEE are available for download via URL:

http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/802.11.html; these variousstandards are hereby incorporated by this reference herein.

As businesses connected their LANs to the Internet 160, they installedfirewalls 145 to protect their local networks and act as security gatesto fend off unauthorized traffic coming from the Internet's informationhighway such as potential hacker 135. The mobility of air-bound,wireless networks creates security concerns where threats can come fromany direction and are not limited to the wired infrastructure.Established security practices of guarding a few wired entry points tothe network are no longer effective. A firewall 145 may effectivelydeter an attack from a wired hacker 135 via the Internet 160; however,wireless hackers 195A, 195B typically enter the LAN 190 through accesspoints 180A, 180B that are already behind the firewall 145. Companiesmust constantly monitor their airwaves to survey wireless activity andguard against intruders.

Because wireless communication is broadcast over radio waves,eavesdroppers 195A, 195B who merely listen to the airwaves can easilypick up unencrypted messages. Additionally, messages encrypted with theWired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) security protocol can be decrypted with alittle time and easily available hacking tools. These passive intrudersput businesses at risk of exposing sensitive information to corporateespionage.

The theft of an authorized user's identity poses one the greatestthreats. Service Set Identifiers (SSIDs) that act as crude passwords andMedia Access Control (MAC) addresses that act as personal identificationnumbers are often used to verify that clients are authorized to connectwith an access point. However, existing encryption standards are notfoolproof and allow knowledgeable intruders to pick up approved SSIDsand MAC addresses to connect to a WLAN as an authorized user with theability to steal bandwidth, corrupt or download files, and wreak havocon the entire network.

Outsiders who cannot gain access to a WLAN can none-the-less posesecurity threats by jamming or flooding the airwaves with static noisethat causes WLAN signals to collide and produce CRC errors. TheseDenial-of-Service (DoS) attacks effectively shut down the wirelessnetwork in a similar way that DoS attacks affect wired networks.

Careless and deceitful actions by both loyal and disgruntled employeesalso present security risks and performance issues to wireless networkswith unauthorized access points, improper security measures, and networkabuses. Because a simple WLAN can be easily installed by attaching a $80access point to a wired network and a $30 WLAN card to a laptop,employees are deploying unauthorized WLANs or peer-to-peer wirelessconnections 175 when IT departments are slow to adopt the newtechnology.

Incorrectly configured access points are an avoidable but significanthole in WLAN security. Many access points are initially configured tobroadcast unencrypted SSIDs of authorized users. While SSIDs areintended to be passwords to verify authorized users, intruders caneasily steal an unencrypted SSID to assume the identity of an authorizeduser.

Authorized users can also threaten the integrity of the network withabuses that drain connection speeds, consume bandwidth, and hinder aWLAN's overall performance. A few users who clog the network by tradinglarge files such as MP3 audio or MPEG video files can affect theproductivity of everyone on the wireless network.

The systems and methods according to the present invention providesolutions to these and other security and/or management issuesassociated with WLANs and/or encrypted computer networks.

SUMMARY

The present invention is directed to systems and methods for adaptivelyscanning for wireless communication. One preferred embodiment accordingto the present invention includes a system data store (SDS) and a systemprocessor. The SDS stores data needed to provide the adaptive scanfunctionality and may include, for example, access point characteristicdata, wireless network node characteristic data, and/or wireless channeldesignations and/or characteristic data. The SDS may include multiplephysical and/or logical data stores for storing the various types ofinformation. Data storage and retrieval functionality may be provided byeither the system processor or data storage processors associated with,or included within, the SDS. Some embodiments can further include one ormore wireless receivers that monitor wireless transmissions.

The system processor is in communication with the SDS via any suitablecommunication channel(s); in embodiments including one or more wirelessreceivers, the system processor is in communication with the one or morewireless receivers via the same, or differing, communication channel(s).The system processor may include one or more processing elements thatprovide and/or support the desired detection and/or enforcementfunctionality. In some embodiments, the system processor can includelocal, central and/or peer processing elements depending upon equipmentand the configuration thereof.

Accordingly, one preferred method of adaptive scanning includes avariety of steps that may, in certain embodiments, be executed by theenvironment above or be stored as computer executable instructions inand/or on any suitable combination of computer-readable media. Scan datais received. The scan data is based upon one or more scans of wirelessnetwork channels according to a scanning pattern. Each wireless networkchannel has a designation of primary or secondary. At least one of thechannels has a designation of secondary. The scan pattern is determinedbased upon the designation associated with each wireless networkchannel. In some embodiments, all channels can be designated assecondary in the default scan pattern; in such embodiments, dynamicadaptation is relied upon to focus the scanning efforts on particularchannels of interest. A determination is made as to whether anomalousactivity is present on a selected wireless network channel designated assecondary based upon the received scan data. If anomalous activity isdetermined to be present on the selected wireless network channel, thescan pattern is adapted by altering at least one monitoring parameterassociated with the selected wireless network channel. In someembodiments, the alteration may include redesignating the selectedchannel as primary, increasing scan rate for the channel, increasingscan time for the channel or combinations thereof.

Additional advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in thedescription which follows, and in part will be obvious from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention. Theadvantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means ofthe elements and combinations particularly pointed out herein. It is tobe understood that both the foregoing general description and thefollowing detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only andare not restrictive of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute apart of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention andtogether with the description, serve to explain the principles of theinvention.

FIG. 1 graphically depicts a typical LAN with both wired and wirelesscomponents.

FIGS. 2A-E graphically depicts LANs incorporating various preferredembodiments according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of a multi-dimensional wireless intrusiondetection process according to one preferred embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of an example multiple input wireless intrusiondetection process including multiple input correlation and long-termdata fusion.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of an exemplary dynamic channel change activedefense process that includes a honeypot trap.

FIGS. 6A-B are flow charts of example station identification andlocation mapping processes.

FIGS. 7A-C are diagram depicting exemplary architectures for sensordevices.

FIGS. 8A-B are flow charts depicting an exemplary security datacollection process performed according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart depicting steps in an exemplary wireless networktopology tracking process.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart depicting an automated wireless network policyenforcement process.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart depicting an adaptive scanning process.

FIGS. 12A-B is a figure depicting a sample visualization of a wirelessnetwork topology.

FIG. 12A1 is a larger rendering of the left panel of FIG. 12A.

FIGS. 13A1, 13A2, 13B1 & 13B2 depict sample screens providing interfacesfor configuration of automated policy enforcement.

FIG. 13A1 a is a larger rendering of the left panel of FIG. 13A1.

FIG. 14 depicts an exemplary interface for configuring a default orbaseline scan pattern.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Exemplary embodiments of the present invention are now described indetail. Referring to the drawings, like numbers indicate like partsthroughout the views. As used in the description herein, the meaning of“a,” “an,” and “the” includes plural reference unless the contextclearly dictates otherwise. Also, as used in the description herein, themeaning of “in” includes “in” and “on” unless the context clearlydictates otherwise. Finally, as used in the description herein, themeanings of “and” and “or” include both the conjunctive and disjunctiveand may be used interchangeably unless the context clearly dictatesotherwise; the phrase “exclusive or” may be used to indicate situationwhere only the disjunctive meaning may apply.

Ranges may be expressed herein as from “about” one particular value,and/or to “about” another particular value. When such a range isexpressed, another embodiment includes from the one particular valueand/or to the other particular value. Similarly, when values areexpressed as approximations, by use of the antecedent “about,” it willbe understood that the particular value forms another embodiment. Itwill be further understood that the endpoints of each of the ranges aresignificant both in relation to the other endpoint, and independently ofthe other endpoint.

The term “Wi-Fi” is short for wireless fidelity and is another name forIEEE 802.11b. The foregoing discussion of exemplary embodiments may useterminology or make reference to the IEEE 802.11b standard, or other802.11 variant; however, those skilled in the art will appreciate thatsystems and methods of the present invention may be applied to WLANsmeeting these standards as well as WLANs developed according tocompeting WLAN standards. The phrase “frame” as used herein shall meanbroadly any discretely defined communication transmitted via a computernetwork and shall not be limited to those specific frame types (control,management, data and error) defined according to 802.11X standards.

Architecture of a Typical Access Environment

FIGS. 2A-E depicts several LAN environments including several preferredembodiments according to the present invention. These figures depict atypical LAN environment as depicted in FIG. 1 having wired and wirelesscomponents. In contrast to FIG. 1, FIGS. 2A-E include one or morehardware components supporting preferred embodiments according to thepresent invention. The depicted hardware components include a systemprocessor, an SDS and one or more interfaces to one or more wirelessand/or encrypted communications network over which electroniccommunications are transmitted and received.

The hardware components depicted in these figures are outlined asfollows:

-   -   In FIG. 2A, the hardware components include a single device 210A        that includes a local processor serving as the system processor,        or at least a portion thereof, and the one or more interfaces to        the wireless network. The device 210A is preferably a mobile        computer system such as a notebook computer. The local primary        and/or secondary storage of device 210A may serve as the SDS;        alternatively, portions of the SDS may be provided by other        systems capable of communicating with the device 210A such as        network addressable data storage 110, local servers 120 and/or        wireless stations 170A, 170B. In some embodiments, the device's        interfaces to the wireless network may be limited to one or more        wireless receivers. In other embodiments, the interfaces may        include one or more wireless transmitters as well as one or more        transmitters. If wireless transmitters are included, the device        210 may communicate over LAN 190 using a wireless access point        180A, 180B. In addition, included wireless transmitters may be        used to support one or more of the active defense measures        described in greater detail below. In some embodiments, the        device 210A may further include a wired connection (not shown)        to Ethernet 150 allowing direct communication between it and        systems connected to the wired portion of LAN 190.    -   In FIG. 2B, the hardware components include multiple devices        210A, 210B, 210C, 210D. Each device 210A-D includes a local        processor and one or more interfaces to the wireless network and        is preferably a mobile computer system such as a notebook        computer. The individual local processors in the aggregate serve        as the system processor. The SDS may include a combination of        storage local to each of the devices and/or external storage        accessible via the LAN 190. As described above with respect to        FIG. 2A, each device includes at least a wireless receiver but        may also include additional wireless receivers and/or wireless        transmitters. Each device may also include a wired connection        (not shown) to Ethernet 150. Finally, the devices 210A-D may        further use existing interfaces and/or incorporate additional        interfaces to allow peer-to-peer communication among themselves.    -   In FIG. 2C, the hardware components include multiple devices        210A, 210B, 210C, 210D, 220. Each device 210A-D may include the        various components as described above with respect to FIG. 2B.        Device 220 includes a local processor and one or more        communication interfaces; this device may be referred to        hereinafter as the host system. Device 220's communication        interfaces may include only a wired communication interface and        may receive data related to wireless communications as forwarded        by devices 210A-D over the wire Ethernet 150. In addition to, or        instead of, the wired communication interface, device 220 may        include a one or more wireless communication interfaces each of        which may include a wireless receiver, a wireless transmitter or        both. In embodiment where devices 210A-D support peer-to-peer        communication, device 220 may in some of such embodiments        participate in the peer-to-peer communication and, in such        instances, its communication interfaces would include the        appropriate communication interface to support this        participation. The system processor functionality in the        depicted embodiment may be provided by the host system alone        and/or by some combination of the devices 210A-D. The host        system may in some embodiments provide the SDS for the        environment; alternatively, the SDS may be supported by some        combination of the local storage among the devices 210A-D, the        local storage in the host system and external storage available        through LAN 190.    -   In FIG. 2D, the hardware components include multiple devices        210A, 210B, 210C, 210D, 220, 230A, 230B. Devices 210A-D, 220        support the same functionality and include the same range of        components as provided above with respect to FIG. 2C. In        addition, devices 230A, 230B are sensor devices that monitor        wireless traffic over the wireless network. These sensor devices        at least include a wireless receiver for monitoring the traffic        and a communication interface wired (as depicted) or wireless        (not shown) allowing communication with one or more of the        devices 210A-D and/or the host system 220. In some embodiments,        the sensor devices 230A, 230B may include a wireless transmitter        for supporting communication with the other hardware components        and/or for supporting various active wireless network defensive        measures as discussed below. In some embodiments, the sensor        device 230A, 230B may further include local processing        capability and or local storage capability; in some such        embodiments, the system processor and/or the SDS may incorporate        these local capabilities of the sensor devices 230A, 230B.    -   In FIG. 2E, the hardware components include multiple devices        220, 230A, 230B. In this embodiment, the host system 220 and        sensor devices 230A, 230B include the same functionality and        range of components as discussed above with respect to FIGS. 2D        and 2E respectively. In such embodiments, the host system 220        will typically provide a significant portion of the system        processor functionality and will only have limited capacity to        directly receive wireless network communication. In some of        these embodiments, the host system 220 may have no wireless        communication interface.

The depicted hardware components include a system processor potentiallyincluding multiple processing elements, that may be distributed acrossthe depicted hardware components, where each processing element may besupported via Intel-compatible processor platforms preferably using atleast one PENTIUM III or CELERON (Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif.)class processor; alternative processors such as UltraSPARC (SunMicrosystems, Palo Alto, Calif.) could be used in other embodiments. Insome embodiments, security enhancement functionality, as furtherdescribed below, may be distributed across multiple processing elements.The term processing element may refer to (1) a process running on aparticular piece, or across particular pieces, of hardware, (2) aparticular piece of hardware, or either (1) or (2) as the contextallows. The sensor devices 230A, 230B depicted in FIGS. 2D-E may in somepreferred embodiments include more limited optimized local processorssuch as a digital signal processor (DSP). Other embodiment can useapplication specific integrated circuits (ASIC) or a field programmablegate arrays (FPGA).

The depicted hardware components include an SDS that could include avariety of primary and secondary storage elements. In one preferredembodiment, the SDS would include RAM as part of the primary storage;the amount of RAM might range from 64 MB to 4 GB in each individualhardware device although these amounts could vary and representoverlapping use such as where the host system 220 supports additionalfunctionality such as integrated with firewall system 145 for providingunified wired and wireless security. The primary storage may in someembodiments include other forms of memory such as cache memory,registers, non-volatile memory (e.g., FLASH, ROM, EPROM, etc.), etc. Thesensor devices 230A, 230B depicted in FIGS. 2D-E may in some preferredembodiments include more limited amounts and kinds of primary storage.In one preferred embodiments, the primary storage in the sensor devicesincludes FLASH memory.

The SDS may also include secondary storage including single, multipleand/or varied servers and storage elements. For example, the SDS may useinternal storage devices connected to the system processor. Inembodiments where a single processing element supports all of thesecurity analysis functionality, such as seen in FIGS. 2A and 2E, alocal hard disk drive may serve as the secondary storage of the SDS, anda disk operating system executing on such a single processing elementmay act as a data server receiving and servicing data requests.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the differentinformation used in the security enhancement processes and systemsaccording to the present invention may be logically or physicallysegregated within a single device serving as secondary storage for theSDS; multiple related data stores accessible through a unifiedmanagement system, which together serve as the SDS; or multipleindependent data stores individually accessible through disparatemanagement systems, which may in some embodiments be collectively viewedas the SDS. The various storage elements that comprise the physicalarchitecture of the SDS may be centrally located, or distributed acrossa variety of diverse locations.

The architecture of the secondary storage of the system data store mayvary significantly in different embodiments. In several embodiments,database(s) are used to store and manipulate the data; in some suchembodiments, one or more relational database management systems, such asDB2 (IBM, White Plains, N.Y.), SQL Server (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.),ACCESS (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.), ORACLE 8i (Oracle Corp., RedwoodShores, Calif.), Ingres (Computer Associates, Islandia, N.Y.), MySQL(MySQL AB, Sweden) or Adaptive Server Enterprise (Sybase Inc.,Emeryville, Calif.), may be used in connection with a variety of storagedevices/file servers that may include one or more standard magneticand/or optical disk drives using any appropriate interface including,without limitation, IDE and SCSI. In some embodiments, a tape librarysuch as Exabyte X80 (Exabyte Corporation, Boulder, Colo.), a storageattached network (SAN) solution such as available from (EMC, Inc.,Hopkinton, Mass.), a network attached storage (NAS) solution such as aNetApp Filer 740 (Network Appliances, Sunnyvale, Calif.), orcombinations thereof may be used. In other embodiments, the data storemay use database systems with other architectures such asobject-oriented, spatial, object-relational or hierarchical.

Instead of, or in addition to, those organization approaches discussedabove, certain embodiments may use other storage implementations such ashash tables or flat files or combinations of such architectures. Suchalternative approaches may use data servers other than databasemanagement systems such as a hash table look-up server, procedure and/orprocess and/or a flat file retrieval server, procedure and/or process.Further, the SDS may use a combination of any of such approaches inorganizing its secondary storage architecture.

The hardware components may each have an appropriate operating systemsuch as WINDOWS/NT, WINDOWS 2000 or WINDOWS/XP Server (Microsoft,Redmond, Wash.), Solaris (Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, Calif.), or LINUX(or other UNIX variant). In one preferred embodiment, the devices 210A-Dand/or host system 220 include a LINUX (or other UNIX variant) operatingsystem; although other embodiments may include a WINDOWS/XP (or otherWINDOWS family) operating system.

Depending upon the hardware/operating system platform of the overallenvironment, appropriate server software may be included to support thedesired access for the purpose of configuration, monitoring and/orreporting. Web server functionality may be provided via an InternetInformation Server (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.), an Apache HTTP Server(Apache Software Foundation, Forest Hill, Md.), an iPlanet Web Server(iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions—A Sun—Netscape Alliance, Mountain View,Calif.) or other suitable Web server platform. The e-mail services maybe supported via an Exchange Server (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.),sendmail or other suitable e-mail server. Some embodiments may includeone or more automated voice response (AVR) systems that are in additionto, or instead of, the aforementioned access servers. Such an AVR systemcould support a purely voice/telephone driven interface to theenvironment with hard copy output delivered electronically to suitablehard copy output device (e.g., printer, facsimile, etc.), and forward asnecessary through regular mail, courier, inter-office mail, facsimile orother suitable forwarding approach.

Some preferred embodiments of the present invention include sensordevices 230A, 230B of a form such as depicted in FIGS. 7A-C. FIG. 7Adepicts a sensing device having combined functionality of an accesspoint and sensor. The device includes a transceiver antenna 705 and asensing antenna 710. The transceiver antenna 705 allows receipt andtransmission of wireless signals according to a predetermined protocolsuch as a variant of IEEE 802.11. Wireless stations associate with theactive radio (transceiver antenna) which connects through port 720 to awired network such as a network interface to a local Ethernet and/or toa further wireless network (transceiver not shown), a modem allowingconnection to a network or direct connection to a host system or peersystem or combinations thereof. The sensing antenna 710 allows receptionof wireless signals according to the protocol without impactingperformance of transceiver. The sensing antenna 710 receives allwireless signals in parallel with the transceiver antenna 705. Thesensor can further include local data storage 715 that serves as theSDS, or a portion thereof. This local storage 715 contains any necessaryoperating code and/or data such as accumulated security data, networkconfiguration data, sensor identification information and/or networkcommunication related data. This local storage typically include DRAM,FLASH memory or combinations thereof. The sensor can further include alocal processor 725 that serves as the system processor, or a portionthereof. This local processor 725 supports communication management andsecurity collection, and in some embodiment security analysis,functionality. The local processor can be any microprocessor, ASIC, FPGAor combination thereof that has the computing power capable of managingthe two wireless components 705 and 710 and the auxiliary components ofthe device (e.g., local storage 715, network interface 720, etc.); forexample, a Pentium I Class microprocessor (Intel) or faster is capableof managing the computing needs. The device will also include aconnection to a power source such as depicted alternating current (AC)interface 730 although other embodiments could in addition, or instead,include a power over Ethernet compatible interface or a repository forone or more disposable and/or rechargeable batteries.

FIG. 7B depicts a stand-alone sensor embodiment. In this embodiment, awireless transceiver for supporting access point functionality is notincluded. The description above with respect to FIG. 7A providesdescription of the like numbered components in FIG. 7B. This embodimentincludes a further communication interface 735. This additionalinterface can be used to connect further devices such as a standardaccess point. This would be useful for installing a sensor at a locationwith an existing access point without having to run another networkline. Any data sent outbound from the device connected to interface 735would be forwarded via network interface 720. Any data received atnetwork interface 720 directed to the device would be forwarded viainterface 735.

FIG. 7C depicts a modified access point embodiment. In this embodiment,a separate antenna is not provided for parallel monitoring of wirelesssignals. Instead, wireless transceiver 705 is responsible for bothaccess point and signal monitor functionality. This functionality can beimplemented in software or hardware of the local processor 725, or as amodified logic within the transceiver itself. This embodiment has theadvantage that existing access points with sufficient local processingcapability can be modified through either a hardware addition or asoftware upgrade to support the monitoring capability. One disadvantageis that the original access point may not have been intended to supportboth functionality and, therefore, access point functionality may bedegraded in some instances.

As previously described, the sensors 230A-B and/or devices 210A-D insome embodiments collect and forward security related data to a hostsystem 220 for further processing and analysis. Some such embodimentsprovide for local processing of security data. FIGS. 8A-B are flowcharts depicting an exemplary security data collection process performedaccording to the present invention. In some embodiments, this processcan be executed by sensors 230A-B and/or devices 210A-D.

In some particular embodiments using an 802.11 compatible network, thehardware sensors read 802.11 radio waves and strip management andcontrol frames, aggregate statistics and send collected information to abackend server. A hardware sensor can have several embodiments. Threeembodiments such as depicted in FIGS. 7A-7C would be a stand-alonehardware sensor (FIG. 7B), a combination 802.11 Access Point/hardwaresensor (FIG. 7A), and a modified 802.11 Access Point capable ofstripping management and control frames and sending them back to acentral server for analysis (FIG. 7C).

A hardware sensor will typically include at least one 802.11 radiocapable of reading 802.11 radio waves. To provide functionality forsecuring a wireless network, the hardware sensor strips 802.11management and control frames off of wireless data transmissions andsends real-time or batched data back to a centralized server (e.g., hostsystem 220) for analysis and processing to determine intrusions or othernetwork activity such as health or performance monitoring or performingsuch analysis and processing locally in peer-to-peer configurations.

In the three above mentioned embodiments, the stand-alone hardwaresensor would have an 802.11 radio operating in “promiscuous mode” inorder to be undetectable from the airwaves and still read all 802.11network traffic. In operating in promiscuous mode, the hardware sensorwould not be able to transmit data such as beacon management and wouldbe in a read-only operation mode. The sensor software embedded on thedevice would read 802.11 frames from the wireless network andinterrogate them to strip the management and control frames from thedata frames, collect the data and send it to the back-end server. Theprocess to collect the data in one preferred approach is as follows:

The physical hardware powers up and loads the operating system(preferred OS: Real-Time Linux or RTOS) to an operational state, step800. The first-time execution of the sensor process after power up (step805), a timer is initialized for management and control frames buffering(step 810). The timer allows the management and control frames to bebuffered until the timer reaches a predetermined elapsed time, at whichpoint they will be forwarded to a server or peer for processing orprocessed locally. Although other embodiments can forward unbufferedmanagement and control frames and would therefore not require a timer,or any process steps involving the timer.

A wireless packet frame is then read from the wireless network, step820. Frames are read so that the frame content can be interrogated indown-stream processes. This is also the entry point 815 in the processfor retrieving the next frame after interrogation of the present frame.

The packet frame read off the wireless network is interrogated todetermine if the frame is of a redundant type such as management orcontrol frames, step 825. If the frame is of a redundant type,processing continues at entry point 830 in FIG. 8B. Management andcontrol frames are broadcast more frequently than data frames and areprotocol specific. Further interrogation of a management or controlframe is performed to determine whether the frame is a redundant typeframe (i.e., Beacon Frame), step 855. If not, control passes back toentry point 815 in FIG. 8A. Management and control frames such as beaconframes are broadcast more frequently than data frames and can bebuffered as one record with a frame count and to reduce the traffic onthe network as frames are transmitted to the server or to a peer or toreduce overhead of local processing. The buffering can be accomplishedby maintaining a frame count for the particular type of redundant frame(step 860) and populating an appropriate data structure based upon theredundant frame type (step 865). If an appropriate time interval haselapsed or if a particular time has been reached (step 870), or if nobuffering is intended, processing proceeds to entry point 845 in FIG. 8Afor forwarding of the redundant frame information to the central serveror peer or for local processing depending upon the particularembodiment. If the timer does not trigger transmission or processing,processing continues at entry point 815 for retrieval of the next framein FIG. 8A.

If the frame is not of a redundant type, processing continues at step835 where the header data is stripped from the wireless packet frame.The header data is used to get origin/destination data as well as formaintaining state.

In step 840, a data structure is populated with pertinent informationconcerning wireless station state and protocol activity as well asorigin and destination information for later down-line processing by abackend analysis server, by a peer or a local processor.

Once data is accumulated and preprocessed by the remote sensor, theresulting data structures are passed back to the central server or apeer over IP or locally processed for intrusion detection analysis (step850). The process continues at entry point 815 with the retrieval of thenext frame.

The embodiment of a combination hardware sensor and access point, one802.11 radio would operate as a normal 802.11 access point operating ininfrastructure mode that would allow wireless stations to associate andpass data through to the wired network. The additional 802.11 radiowould operate in promiscuous mode just as a stand-alone hardware sensorwould operate. This would give the device the ability to send andreceive data as a normal 802.11 access point while utilizing theadditional radio to monitor the airwaves against intrusions and monitorthe wireless network for performance and health monitoring.

The embodiment of an access point modified to provide monitoringcapability would utilize a single 802.11 radio to send and receive datawith wireless stations but would utilize an SNMP mechanism to send trapsback to a back end server when events occur such as intrusions orattacks against the access point. This method is not as effective as thepreviously mentioned embodiments but can provide additional informationthat is not collected by standard operating access points.

In one preferred embodiment, devices 210A-D and host system 220 can beconfigured locally or remotely, and configuration can occur through aninteractive interface and/or through a command line interface. Theinteractive interface is accessible locally whereas the command lineinterface is accessible either locally or remotely. Remote access ispreferably granted through the use of a secure shell (SSH) clientcommunicating with an SSH server running on the device or host system.

Wireless Network Topology Mapping and Visualization

Management of a wireless network differs in many ways from themanagement of a wired network. One important difference is the moredynamic nature of nodes (computers, PDAs, 802.11 cell phones, etc) inthe network. In a wired network, connections to the network occur onlyat fixed locations. In a wireless network, nodes are not tied tophysical connectivity to the network; a wireless network has notraditional boundaries and its topology can change at a fairly highrate.

This dynamic change is due to the ability of wireless network users toroam across multiple networks as well as the ability of modern wirelessprotocols to support instantaneous creation of ad hoc networks.Additionally, due to the nature of wireless RF transmission,connectivity may vary much more dynamically than in a wired network.This is due to physical channel variations such as noise, multipath,transmission obstacles, etc. that are not typically a factor in wirednetworks. Given these features, the connectivity patterns and networktopology can change from moment to moment.

FIG. 9 depicts a process that supports the capture, and in someembodiments visualization, of a wireless network topology over time.This mechanism utilizes the stateful analysis capabilities of thenetwork behavior engine to capture and track the connectivity patternsof users and the networks that are established over time.

The monitoring process is initialized in step 910. Network data isaccumulated over a defined time period (an epoch or interval) byprocessing network data in step 920 until an epoch is complete asdetermined in step 930. This epoch may vary in length depending upon thedepth of analysis and state accumulation desired. In any case, at theend of an epoch, statistical and state analysis is performed on theaccumulated data in step 940. In step 950, topology data is generatedand/or updated from the network data and/or data generated in step 940.

This data accumulation process (steps 910-940) can be the samemonitoring process as depicted and described herein below with respectto FIG. 4. Initialization in step 910 can include the FIG. 4configuration process as previously discussed. In such case, topologyupdating 950 would occur concurrently with, before or after the staticsupdate step 470. In some such embodiments, the multidimensional IDSprocess step 435 can include testing for various departures fromtopology expectations.

Step 960, topology analysis may occur automatically after each epoch;alternatively, progression to step 960 may only occur as a result of anon-demand inquiry from a user or another system. In either case, thetopology data can be analyzed in several ways.

For analysis purposes, this topology can then be representedmathematically as a graph, with a set of nodes and edges interconnectingthe nodes per the observed pattern. This generated topology can also befurther processed to generate a visualization or to compare with a priornetwork topology to evaluate potential security and/or policyviolations. The topology comparison in some embodiments could includerules-based comparison for potential security and/or policy violations.In addition, or instead, the topology could be subject to a patternmatching-based comparison to identify a topology state that violatessecurity and/or policy constraints. Any suitable pattern matchingapproach could be used; in some instances, neural networks, lexicalanalysis and/or bit masking could be included as part of such patternmatching. Through collection of state information related to activity,usage and connectivity patterns, the topology can be constructed andupdated over time as new state information is collected by the system.Additional information also includes device identity and classification,allowing each node in the network to be represented in terms of itscapabilities, its state and its usage patterns. Further, these patternscan also be analyzed via a number of mechanisms including patternmatching to discriminate between normal and anomalous activity.

The analyzed topology data is then output in step 970. This topologyinformation can be output as a visualization in some embodiments throughthe use of graphical representations with encodings for state, traffic,security; and connectivity. FIGS. 12A, 12A1 and 12B depict an examplevisualization interface showing a tracked topology. In such embodimentsemploying a graphical representation, color of various graphical itemscan be used to convey additional information regarding the state,traffic, security and connectivity of particular devices represented bythe graphical items.

In one particular embodiment as depicted in these figures, the colorshave prescribed meanings as follows for sensors, access points/bridgesand stations:

Sensors: Sensors can be blue, green or red and can have the letters L,S, LL, SS, SL, or LS. L means locked on channel, and S means scanningchannels. The single versus double letters is for the two differenttypes of hardware.

-   -   Blue—Default Sensor that is a placeholder for imported/manual        added devices that have not been observed yet.    -   Green—Sensor is online.    -   Red—Sensor is off-line.

Access Points/Bridges: Access Points and bridges can be blue, green,red, or gray.

-   -   Blue: manually added or imported into the system but has not        been observed yet    -   Green: authorized    -   Red: unauthorized    -   Gray: ignored

Stations: Wireless stations can be blue, green, red, gray, purple ororange. Stations can also have a W in them if they are on a watch list.

-   -   Blue: manually added or imported into the system but has not        been observed yet    -   Green: authorized on the access point (could be current state or        historical)    -   Red: unauthorized on the access point (could be current state or        historical)    -   Gray: ignored    -   Purple: unassociated wireless station    -   Orange: adhoc station

In addition to, or instead of, a visualization output, an alert could begenerated if a topology violation were detected as a result of theanalysis. Such a notification could be in the form of a communication toa user and/or another system as described in further detail below withrespect to alerts.

Access Point Configuration

In some preferred embodiments of the present invention, an interactiveinterface is provided for configuring the access point and varioushardware components and supplying a variety of configuration dataincluding thresholds values of various kinds. In one preferredembodiment, an administration program area provides such an interfaceand allows:

-   -   definition and configuration of access point settings and        policies;    -   definition of authorized user identities and authorized types or        modes of behavior    -   creation and/or designation of thresholds used to trigger        intrusion/detection alarms for authorized access points;    -   creation and/or designation of default thresholds used to        trigger intrusion/detection alarms for non-authorized access        points; and    -   configuration of settings for the various hardware/software        components.

The administration program area, in one preferred embodiment, offersstandard windowing interface featuring tabbed pages for easy navigationbetween configuration functions. From within each of the tabbed pages,an Edit button allows modification of the values. After editing thedata, Accept temporarily saves the changes. Commit permanently saves andapplies edits (until edited again). Accepted changes persist until thesystem is restarted whereas committed changes persist until acrossrestarts.

One preferred embodiment automatically attempts to detect and record allthe configured properties for all access points it observes. Thesettings constitute access point “policies”—when access point propertiesdeviate from those recorded, one or more alarms can be generated. Thevalues for an access point can be modified manually to alter thegeneration of specific alarms. Policies for off-line access points canalso be created in some embodiments using an Add feature.

The table below provides a summary of several access point propertiesdisplayable and/or configurable in some preferred embodiments of thepresent invention.

Values Description Access Point ID The MAC address of the access point.Access Point Name The user-defined name of the access point. ExtendedService The name of the Extended Service Set indicating the wireless SetID network to which the access point belongs. Access Point Themanufacturer of the access point. In some embodiments, this Vendor isdetected by comparing the first three bytes of its MAC address with adatabase of OUI numbers. Supported Rates The data transfer rates theaccess point supports. In some embodiments, this value (or these values)can be edited to specify the supported rates. Authentication Whether theaccess point accepts non-authenticated network Modes connections and/oralso accepts shared key authentication. (If connections are detectedthat deviate from either of these settings, an alarm can be generated.)Configured to Run Whether or not the access point is configured torequire WEP WEP encryption. AP Mgmt From Whether the access point isconfigured to allow users to directly Wireless Network administer itssettings over the wireless network. Authorized Access Whether thisaccess point is authorized to be present in the air Point space.Unauthorized access points, when detected, can generate alarms. (In someembodiment, a change in this value will not take effect until the systemis restarted.)

For each access point, a station maintenance screen or menu may allowthe specification of the stations that are authorized to use it. Onepreferred embodiment of such a screen or menu, automatically detects allstations within the footprint of the access point's Basic Service Set(BSS) and enters their MAC addresses in an Observed column. Suchstations can be indicated as an authorized member of the BSS byselecting them in the Observed column and designating them as Valid.Designated stations are moved to a Valid column. (Stations can, in someembodiments, be designated as invalid by selecting and marking them inthe Valid column.) Stations not auto-detected can be manually entered byspecifying its MAC address in a Enter New Station input field andtriggering an Add Station feature. Authorization of stations can also bedone via file import, access control server export or via directconfiguration through a typical access point configuration andmanagement port.

Access Point Threshold Configuration and Aggregate Station Thresholds

Systems and methods according to the present invention generate alertsif network traffic that exceeds thresholds is detected. In one preferredembodiment, all detected or manually configured off-line access pointsare listed in a Select AP pick list. Thresholds associated with eachaccess point in the pick list can be edited by selecting the particularaccess point. Such threshold values can be either temporary (until thenext restart) or persistent across restarts (until a further editdesignated as persistent).

Values Description Signal Strength If the signal strength for anystation in the BSS is Threshold lower than this value, an alarm can begenerated. # of Associations Enter the maximum number of associationsper minute per Minute to allow with all stations combined. (Preferably,this value is not higher than twice the number of stations in the BSS.)# of Associated Enter the maximum number of stations allowed to Stationsassociate at any one time with this access point. The number shouldreflect the actual number of stations. If a greater number is detected,an alarm can be generated.

The following table outlines a set of thresholds used in one preferredembodiment that refer to the network characteristics encompassing allstations and traffic in the BSS. In one preferred embodiment, specialcare must be taken when creating the “byte thresholds” that immediatelyfollow. Several factors govern the values entered for each:

-   -   The “transmission rate” of the access point—how much data it can        transmit—is the first consideration. If the transmission rate is        only 1 megabyte per second, the thresholds will be much lower        than if the transmission rate is 11 megabytes per second.    -   All four “directions” of traffic (wired to wired, wired to        wireless, wireless to wired, and wireless to wireless) must add        up to less than 100% of available bandwidth. Many administrators        will set the individual thresholds such that their combined        value is less than 80% of available bandwidth.

Value Description # Bytes into Enter the maximum number of bytes of dataper minute allowed into BSS from the BSS from the wired portion of yournetwork. If a greater number is Wired Net detected, an alarm can begenerated. # Bytes from Enter the maximum number of bytes of data perminute allowed out of BSS to Wired the BSS to a wired portion of yournetwork. If a greater number is Net detected, an alarm can be generated.# Bytes Enter the maximum number of bytes of data per minute allowed tobe between transmitted within the BSS from all stations. If a greaternumber is Stations in BSS detected, an alarm can be generated. # Bytesfrom Enter the maximum number of bytes of data per minute allowed to beWired Net to transmitted from a wired portion of the network to anotherwired Wired Net portion of the network, using the access point as abridge. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated.Total Data Enter the maximum number of data frames per minute from allstations Frames Seen combined allowed to be transmitted. If a greaternumber is detected, an alarm can be generated. Total Mgmt Enter themaximum number of management frames per minute from all Frames Seenstations combined allowed to be transmitted. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. Total Ctrl Enter the maximum numberof control frames per minute from all Frames Seen stations combinedallowed to be transmitted. If a greater number is detected, an alarm canbe generated. Total Ad hoc Enter the maximum number of ad hoc frames perminute from all Frames Seen stations combined allowed to be transmitted.If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated.Individual Station Thresholds

The following table outlines a set of potential thresholds applied toany individual station in one preferred embodiment. If any singlestation reaches one of these thresholds, an alarm can be generated.

Column Description Signal Strength If the signal strength for anystation in the BSS is lower than this Threshold value, an alarm can begenerated. # of Associations Enter the maximum number of associationsper minute any station per Minute is allowed to make with an accesspoint. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # ofBytes Enter the maximum number of bytes of data per minute any stationTransmitted is allowed transmit. If a greater number is detected, analarm can be generated. # of Bytes Received Enter the maximum number ofbytes of data per minute any station is allowed to receive. If a greaternumber is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of Data Frames Enterthe maximum number of data frames per minute any station Transmitted isallowed to transmit. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can begenerated. # of Data Frames Enter the maximum number of data frames perminute any station Received is allowed to receive. If a greater numberis detected, an alarm can be generated. # of Mgmt Frames Enter themaximum number of management frames per minute any Transmitted stationis allowed to transmit. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can begenerated. # of Mgmt Frames Enter the maximum number of managementframes per minute any Received station is allowed to receive. If agreater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of Ctrl FramesEnter the maximum number of control frames per minute any Transmittedstation is allowed to transmit. If a greater number is detected, analarm can be generated. # of Ctrl Frames Enter the maximum number ofcontrol frames per minute any Received station is allowed to receive. Ifa greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of FragmentEnter the maximum number of fragment frames per minute from Frames Seenany station that are allowed. If a greater number is detected, an alarmcan be generated. # of Decrypt Error Enter the maximum number of decrypterror frames per minute Frames Seen from any station that are allowed.If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated.Access Point Station Thresholds

The following table outlines a set of thresholds, in one preferredembodiment, applied to the access point itself, and will typically besomewhat more than the Aggregate Station thresholds.

Column Description Signal Strength If the signal strength for any frameis lower than this value, an Threshold alarm can be generated. # ofAssociations Whereas stations must associate with an access point,access points per Minute do not associate with themselves. Therefore,this value should be zero, indicating that it does not associate. # ofBytes Enter the maximum number of bytes of data per minute this accessTransmitted point is allowed to transmit. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. # of Bytes Enter the maximum numberof bytes of data per minute this access Received point is allowed toreceive. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. #of Data Frames Enter the maximum number of data frames per minute thisaccess Transmitted point is allowed to transmit. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. # of Data Frames Enter the maximumnumber of data frames per minute this access Received point is allowedto receive. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated.# of Mgmt Frames Enter the maximum number of management frames perminute this Transmitted access point is allowed to transmit. If agreater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of Mgmt FramesEnter the maximum number of management frames per minute this Receivedaccess point is allowed to receive. If a greater number is detected, analarm can be generated. # of Ctrl Frames Enter the maximum number ofcontrol frames per minute this Transmitted access point is allowed totransmit. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. #of Ctrl Frames Enter the maximum number of control frames per minutethis Received access point is allowed to receive. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. # of Fragment Enter the maximumnumber of fragment frames per minute this Frames Seen access point cansee before generating an alarm. # of Decrypt Error Enter the maximumnumber of decrypt error frames per minute this Frames Seen access pointcan see before generating an alarm.Default Threshold Information

In one preferred embodiment, whenever a new access point is detected ormanually entered, the specified default settings are applied until it ismanually customized. It is assumed that new or unauthorized accesspoints are potential hackers, so it is preferable to set the defaultthresholds fairly low.

Aggregate Station Thresholds

The table below outlines a set of thresholds that refer to the combinedstatistics for all stations in one preferred embodiment.

Column Description Signal Strength If the signal strength for anystation in the BSS associated with an Threshold unknown access point islower than this value, an alarm can be generated. # of AssociationsWhereas stations must associate with an access point, access points perMinute do not associate with themselves. Therefore, this value should bezero, indicating that it does not associate. # of Associated Enter themaximum number of stations allowed to associate with Stations unknownaccess points. The number should reflect your actual stations. If agreater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # Bytes into BSSEnter the maximum number of bytes of data per minute allowed into fromWired Net the BSS through unknown access points from the wired portionof your network. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can begenerated. # Bytes from BSS Enter the maximum number of bytes of dataper minute allowed out to Wired Net of the BSS through unknown accesspoints to a wired portion of your network. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. # Bytes between Enter the maximumnumber of bytes of data per minute allowed to be Stations in BSStransmitted within the BSS from all stations through unknown accesspoints. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. #Bytes from Enter the maximum number of bytes of data per minute allowedto be Wired Net to transmitted through unknown access points from awired portion of Wired Net the network to another wired portion of thenetwork, using the access point as a bridge. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. Total Data Frames Enter the maximumnumber of data frames per minute for all stations Seen combined allowedto be transmitted through unknown access points. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. Total Mgmt Enter the maximum numberof management frames per minute for all Frames Seen stations combinedallowed to be transmitted through unknown access points. If a greaternumber is detected, an alarm can be generated. Total Ctrl Frames Enterthe maximum number of control frames per minute for all Seen stationscombined allowed to be transmitted through unknown access points. If agreater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. Total Ad hocEnter the maximum number of ad hoc frames per minute for all Frames Seenstations combined allowed to be transmitted through unknown accesspoints. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated.Individual Station Thresholds

The set of thresholds outlined in the table below apply to anyindividual station in one preferred embodiment, and will typically belower than the Aggregate Station thresholds.

Column Description Signal Strength If the signal strength for anystation associated with an unknown Threshold access point is lower thanthis value, an alarm can be generated. # of Associations Enter themaximum number of associations per minute any station is per Minuteallowed to make with an unknown access point. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. # of Bytes Enter the maximum numberof bytes of data per minute any station Transmitted is allowed transmitthrough unknown access points. If a greater number is detected, an alarmcan be generated. # of Bytes Enter the maximum number of bytes of dataper minute any station Received is allowed to receive through unknownaccess points. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can begenerated. # of Data Frames Enter the maximum number of data frames perminute any station is Transmitted allowed to transmit through unknownaccess points. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can begenerated. # of Data Frames Enter the maximum number of data frames perminute any station is Received allowed to receive through unknown accesspoints. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # ofMgmt Frames Enter the maximum number of management frames per minute anyTransmitted station is allowed to transmit through unknown accesspoints. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # ofMgmt Frames Enter the maximum number of management frames per minute anyReceived station is allowed to receive through unknown access points. Ifa greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of CtrlFrames Enter the maximum number of control frames per minute any stationTransmitted is allowed to transmit through unknown access points. If agreater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of Ctrl FramesEnter the maximum number of control frames per minute any stationReceived is allowed to receive through unknown access points. If agreater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of FragmentEnter the maximum number of fragment frames per minute from Frames Seenany station that are allowed. If a greater number is detected, an alarmcan be generated. # of Decrypt Error Enter the maximum number of decrypterror frames per minute from Frames Seen any station that are allowed.If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated.

Access Point Station Thresholds

The set of thresholds in the table below applies to all unauthorizedaccess points in one preferred embodiment.

Column Description Signal Strength If the signal strength for any accesspoint is lower than this value, an Threshold alarm can be generated. #of Associations Enter the maximum number of associations per minutebetween any per Minute access point and stations. (It is recommendedthat this value not be higher than twice the number of stations in yourBSS.) # of Bytes Enter the maximum number of bytes of data per minuteallowed to Transmitted be transmitted from any access point. If agreater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of Bytes Enterthe maximum number of bytes of data per minute allowed to Received bereceived by any access point. If a greater number is detected, an alarmcan be generated. # of Data Frames Enter the maximum number of dataframes per minute allowed to be Transmitted transmitted by any Accesspoint. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # ofData Frames Enter the maximum number of data frames per minute allowedto be Received received by any access point. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. # of Mgmt Frames Enter the maximumnumber of management frames per minute Transmitted allowed to betransmitted by any access point. If a greater number is detected, analarm can be generated. # of Mgmt Frames Enter the maximum number ofmanagement frames per minute Received allowed to be received by anyaccess point. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can begenerated. # of Ctrl Frames Enter the maximum number of control framesper minute allowed to Transmitted be transmitted by any access point. Ifa greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # of CtrlFrames Enter the maximum number of control frames per minute allowed toReceived be received by any access point. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated. # of Fragment Enter the maximumnumber of fragment frames per minute allowed Frames Seen for any accesspoint. If a greater number is detected, an alarm can be generated. # ofDecrypt Error Enter the maximum number of decrypt error frames perminute Frames Seen allowed for any access point. If a greater number isdetected, an alarm can be generated.

Some embodiments may allow for self-configuration of some or all of thethresholds discussed above. Such self-configuration could occur througha learning mode in which the systems and methods according to thepresent invention monitor traffic on the wireless computer network forthe first several hours or days after installation. In such a learningmode, alarm notifications can be disabled. It is expected that, in thebeginning, the generation of alarms will be very high—hundreds orthousands per day depending on actual network traffic—until thresholdsin accordance with the network's normal activity are determined. Once anaccurate picture of normal network traffic has been captured, andthresholds are reflective of normal activity, a switch to normaloperations mode enables alarm notifications.

In one preferred embodiment, a command line interface is provided toconfigure settings that are not available within the graphical userinterface. For example, the IP address of a hardware component can bechanged, its system clock reset or set to “sync” with a network timeserver. In other embodiments, the graphical user interface and/or thecommand line interface can allow significant overlap of configurationcapability. Further, some embodiments have only one or the otherinterface type. Finally, some embodiments provide no interactiveinterface for configuration and are limited to reading configurationdata from a file, deriving configuration data from past monitoring ofthe wireless computer network or otherwise receiving this data. Thecommand line interface in one preferred embodiment can be accessedeither on the hardware component such as through a command shell such asthe Linux Gnome Terminal or over the network using an SSH (preferably,version 2) client.

In one preferred embodiment, a command shell automatically opens on thehardware component after booting. A terminal icon can appear on the taskbar at the bottom of the display; clicking the icon opens additionalterminal windows. At the command line prompt, a command is entered tolaunch the command line interface.

An SSH client is launched and connected to the hardware component's IPaddress. The identity of the user making the connection is verified. Atthe command line prompt, enter the following command to launch thecommand line interface:

Command Line Interface

In one preferred embodiment, the screen displays in the terminal windowprovide five “program areas”:

-   -   Network—offering options to change IP address, DNS servers,        hostname, domain name, mail server, ARP, and create “allow” and        “deny” lists.    -   Date—allowing time and date editing, time zone setting, and        configuration of an NTP server.    -   Service—providing tools to fine-tune the hardware component        parameters, configure data management, and reboot and shut down        the component.    -   Users—allowing creation, editing, and deletion of user accounts        allowed access to the graphical user interface.    -   Help—tips on using the application, and detailed help topics.        Network

Opening the network settings program area, the following commands areavailable in one preferred embodiment:

Command Description IP IP address config Allows modification of the IPaddress, Subnet mask, and default gateway for the hardware componentlogged onto. The “IP configuration” screen opens, displaying the currentnetwork configuration and allows modification. DNS Define DNS serversAdding or deleting a DNS nameserver. The “Nameserver screen” opens,displaying your current DNS server's IP address and allows addition,deletion and modification. Note: Multiple DNS servers can in someembodiments have an “order” for processing DNS requests. The firstserver on the list (identified by the numeral 1) is the first to offername resolution; the second server on the list (identified by thenumeral 2) is the second to process the request if the first is unableto do so. In order to change the order preference of multiple servers,all must be deleted and re-entered in the desired order for them toprocess DNS requests. HNAME Set hostname Changing the name of thehardware component. The Hostname screen displays your current hostnameand allows modification. Bear in mind that whenever the hostname ischanged, its name must also be modified in all devices that refer to it(e.g., DNS servers). DNAME Set domain name Changing the domain to whichthe hardware component belongs. The Domain name screen displays yourcurrent domain name and allows modification. Bear in mind that wheneverthe domain name is changed, it must also be modified in all devices thatrefer to it (e.g., DNS servers). MRELAY Config mail relay hostConfiguring a hardware component to send alarms by email. The Mail relayhost screen appears and allows entry of qualified hostnames. In oneembodiment, mail relay hosts may be referred to by IP address or fullyqualified hostname (e.g., myhostname.mydomainname.com) of a mail serverto process email alarm messages. Note: the mail server must beconfigured to allow this appliance to relay email through it, or atleast to direct its mail to another mail server that will relay it. ARPConfig permanent ARP table Creating a permanent ARP table. The ARP tablescreen displays your current ARP records and allows modification. Inorder to protect connections between this hardware component and remoteadministrators from being hijacked by man-in-the-middle ARP “blasts”(that redirect traffic for this IP address to an alternate MAC address),it is preferable to create permanent ARP records for gateways and otherimportant machines. HALLOW Configure /etc/hosts.allow file Specifyingwhich machines are allowed to connect to the hardware component. TheAllow list screen displays your current list of allowed machines andallows modification. Machines allowed to connect to this hardwarecomponents can be specified. Only those whose IP address, subnet, fullyqualified hostname, or domain name match an entry in this list areallowed to connect to this hardware component to run the availableadministrative programs and routines. HDENY Config /etc/host.deny fileIdentifying machines that may not connect to the hardware component. TheDeny list screen displays your current list of denied machines andallows modification. Machines not allowed to connect to this hardwarecomponent can be specified. Anyone whose IP address, subnet, fullyqualified hostname, or domain name matches an entry in this list are notallowed to connect to this hardware component Note: HALLOW, in onepreferred embodiment, takes precedence over HDENY. For example, if123.456.789.963 is on the allow list, yet the subnet 123.456.789. is onthe deny list, the individual machine above is allowed to connect to theappliance.Date

Opening the date settings program area, the following commands areavailable in one preferred embodiment:

Command Description TIME Time/Date config Allows configuration of thetime/date for the hardware component. TZ Set time zone Allowsconfiguration of the time zone for the hardware component. NTPEnable/disable NTP Allows configuration of the hardware component to usea network time server.

Note: If you change the system time because, for example, you move theappliance's location from the east to west coast of the United States,you must also locate a new network time server in the same time zone.

Services

Opening the set appliance parameters, configure data management, andrestart or shutdown the system area, the following commands areavailable in one preferred embodiment:

Command Description TUNE Tune appliance parameters Allows users tomodify some of the core values related to the environment'sfunctionality. DMGT Data management Allows users to modify how theenvironment stores its data. REBOOT Reboot system Allows gracefulrestart of the hardware component. HALT Halt system Allows gracefulshutdown of the hardware component.Users

Opening the Users program area, the following commands are available inone preferred embodiment:

Command Description NEWU Create user EDITU Edit user DELU Delete user

The functionality of these features can in one preferred embodimentmatch with like functionality provided in a standard LINUX usermanagement facility.

Various methods and functions as exhibited in various embodimentsaccording to the present invention are described above and below withrespect to network security enhancement. In some embodiments, one ormore processors within architectures of the environments as describedabove may execute the steps in such methods and provide suchfunctionality. The functionality may spread across multiple processingelements. In other embodiments, any suitable computer readable storagedevice, media or combination of devices and/or media, including primarystorage such as RAM, ROM, cache memory, etc. or secondary storage suchas magnetic media including fixed and removable disks and tapes; opticalmedia including fixed and removable disks whether read-only orread-write; paper media including punch cards and paper tape; or othersecondary storage as would be known to those skilled in the art, maystore instruction that upon execution by one or more processors causethe one or more processors to execute the steps in such methods and toprovide such functionality.

Vulnerability Assessment and Threat Identification

Vulnerability assessment is accomplished by analyzing WLAN traffic, anddiscovering access points and workstations. The system determines howmany bytes of data stations are sending and receiving, the mean signalstrength for an entire day or the hi/low signal strength for eachminute. It can distinguish between network traffic internal to thewireless network and traffic originating from or destined to thephysical, wired-network and which stations are the largest senders andreceivers of data. The system produces broad summaries of data thatreport high, low, and mean values for a variety of traffic parameters,and detailed views that show minute-by-minute snapshots of your traffic.Traffic parameters include the breakdown of frame traffic (control,management, data, and error frames) and network routing information. Thesystem determines if any traffic has not been encrypted, users areauthenticated, and all hardware is properly configured. The systemdetects rogue deployments by identifying and locating unauthorized WLANsand ad hoc networks (peer-to-peer networks) that violate company policyand jeopardize security. The system identifies suspicious WLAN trafficacross unauthorized channels and frequencies, which can be a common signof intruders accessing your WLAN or employees abusing their networkprivileges.

The systems and methods according to one preferred embodiment use anaudit of existing wireless hardware and perform a survey the air spacesurrounding the wireless network prior to activating intrusiondetection. In this way, a baseline activity level can be determined.

Step 1: Hardware Audit

Identify every access point in the wireless computer network. Obtain ordetermine for each its MAC address, Extended Service Set name,manufacturer, supported transmission rates, authentication modes, andwhether or not it is configured to run Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)and wireless administrative management. In addition, identify everyworkstation equipped with a wireless network interface card, and recordthe MAC address of each device. Take note of any physical features inthe environment (walls, competing electronic devices such as microwaveovens, cordless phones, etc.) that might interfere with wirelesssignals.

The hardware audit serves as the baseline against which the systems andmethods according to the present invention can compare. That is, allaccess points and wireless stations should be detected by the variousembodiments of the present invention. (If an access point or station isnot detected, follow logical troubleshooting steps.) On the other hand,it is likely that more devices than expected will be detected. Some ofthese may be stations or access points not identified or of which no onewas aware. Others may be “rogue” devices—surreptitious or unauthorizedinstallations in the network—or harmless equipment belonging to nearbycompanies, and others may be actual hackers. Once the systems andmethods according to the present invention are in intrusion detectionmode, all detected access points and stations can be reported.

Step 2: Survey Perimeter

Preferably a mobile hardware component according to the presentinvention is walked around the perimeter of the wireless computernetwork in a powered up state (allowing it to collect data as it ismoved), or placed in a central location for 12 to 24 hours to collect alarger amount of data. The benefit of a “walk-around” survey is that itgenerates a nearly immediate picture of the existing wireless “airspace.” The benefit of a “stationary” survey is that over a longerperiod of time, is greater certainty of detecting devices that onlyoperate intermittently or hackers attempting to penetrate the networkoff-hours. Repetition of the survey, whether walking or stationary,should occur on all 11 channels.

Stationary Data Collection

Depending on the size of the wireless network, a hardware component canbe placed at the four corners or at intermediate points in the ExtendedService Set footprint. At each location, the component should be allowedto passively monitor network traffic for 12-24 hours. Hard copy ofnetwork data should be preserved prior to each move.

Walk-around Data Collection

Simply walk around the perimeter of the wireless network with thehardware component powered on and open to an overview screen. Thevarious access points and stations within the wireless computer networkcan be detected. Compare this information with the hardware audit madeprior to collecting this data. Repeat this walk-around survey for eachof the eleven channels.

Step 3: Configure to “Recognize” this Network

Each access point detected should be designated as authorized orunauthorized. Each observed station should be designated as valid ornot.

Step 4: Place hardware components in discrete locations throughout thewireless network.

Leave a component in each location from 1-3 days. Each day, printreports to preserve captured information. Based upon this information,specific access point and station related thresholds can be tuned todistinguish between normal and abnormal traffic patterns.

The intrusion detection system (IDS) engine listens to wireless networktraffic. FIG. 3 depicts one preferred process the IDS follows inevaluating data associated with received traffic. In the depictedexemplary process, all packets pass through four detections systems:signature-based testing, protocol-based testing, anomaly-based testing,and policy deviation-based testing; other embodiments may use one ormore of these tests, or other tests, in varying combinations.

Initially, configuration information is received in step 305, typicallyincluding network default data and risk criteria. This information canbe retrieved from a file, derived or obtained from monitoring thenetwork and/or entered interactively at the outset of the process. Thesystem reads or receives frames from the wireless network in step 310.The received frames are interrogated as follows.

The information within the frame is interrogated to determine if a knownattack signature has been identified in step 325. Signatures encodedatalink layer attack patters as combinations of packet sequences andstate. For example, active probing emits a pattern or sequence ofnetwork requests. This sequence can be recognized by its packet sequencesignature. If the attack signature is identified, the intrusiondetection system signals an alarm manager to deliver an alert to theadministrator in step 345.

If no attack signature is identified, the frame information is passedthrough a protocol violation engine to determine if the protocol used inthe frame is authorized in step 330. Protocol analysis examines whetheror not protocol usage is legitimate. For example, emitting a largenumber of association or disassociation requests in a short interval isnot a legitimate use of the protocol. If the protocol used in the frameis outside of the authorized protocol set, the intrusion detectionsystem signals an alarm manager to deliver an alert to the administratorin step 345.

If the protocol test passes, in step 335, the IDS checks the frame datafor statistical anomalies against the SDS, or a statistics databasemaintained therein. Anomaly based detection computes such values as themean, non-zero mean, standard deviation, autocorrelation and peak foreach time slice throughout the day. This can be used to create anormalized statistics database for each time slice and user. Currentactivity is then monitored and compared with the recorded statisticsvector. If the difference is larger than a configurable threshold, analert is generated. Instead of, or in addition to, this approach, aBayes test can be applied to deduce the probability that the currentstatistics vector is an attack as opposed to a legitimate sequence. Ifan anomaly exists, the intrusion detection system signals an alarmmanager to deliver an alert to the administrator in step 345.

If no anomaly is detected, the system interrogates the frame todetermine if a pre-defined policy has been violated in step 340. Policytesting compares the observed activity with a configurable set ofactivity rules stored in the SDS. For example, a rule can declare thatonly specific hosts with specific addresses and specific network cardscan access the network. If a pre-defined policy has been violated, theintrusion detection system signals an alarm manager to deliver an alertto the administrator in step 345.

The tests outlined above and depicted in FIG. 3 are performed serially.In other embodiments, one or more of these tests may occur in parallel.Further, subsequent tests only occur if a prior test was passed. In afurther preferred embodiment, all tests occur irrespective of theoutcome of a prior test; consequently, a single read frame couldpotentially generate an alarm for every test performed on it.

Alerts can be in the any suitable form delivered to any suitableplatform including, without limitation, a screen display to a monitor, apage to a pager, an outgoing voice call to telephone, a SMS message to amobile telephone, an e-mail message to a valid address, posted to a Webpage available via an appropriate Web server or WAP alert to a WAPenabled device. Various types of screen displays and reports may be usedto provide information regarding generated alarms.

In one preferred embodiment referred to as AirDefense Mobile in U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/381,829 entitled “SYSTEMS ANDMETHODS FOR NEWTORK SECURITY” filed May 20, 2002, preferred interfacesfor reviewing and reporting alarms are described in detail. The contentsof this application are hereby incorporated by this reference herein forall purposes.

In some embodiment, the outputs of all IDS test are then compared and aconfidence level computed in step 345. In one such embodiment, in thecase where only a statistical anomaly is detected, it is flagged as alower level performance alert. In the case where one or more otherviolations are detected, the alarm is elevated to an intrusion alarm.

Some embodiments may use a variety of data stores in implementing theabove process to track data across multiple iterations of the process;such data stores can in one preferred embodiment be part of an SDS asdescribed above. Some such embodiments can include a statisticsdatabase, a station database and/or a state data store. In suchembodiments, some or all of the following steps depicted in FIG. 3 canoccur.

In step 315, a station database is updated. This database contains, inone preferred embodiment, per station and per access point records withinformation describing device address, communications state, timestampsof first and last activity, counts of byte transmissions and localpolicy information describing whether device is authorized or not forusage in the monitored network.

In step 320 state information is updated. State refers to whether or notthe device has been seen before and whether or not the station isunauthenticated and unassociated, authenticated, authenticated andassociated or unknown state information associated with the wirelesscomputer network.

In step 350, a determination is made as to whether a particularstatistics interval has been complete. If so, statistics in an SDS areupdated in step 355, and processing continues with the next frame instep 310. Otherwise, processing simply continues in step 310 with thenext reading or receiving of a frame.

A modified and enhance version of the above approach is used wherenetwork traffic is monitored from multiple input devices such as withthe embodiments depicted in FIGS. 2B-E. FIG. 4 depicts this enhancedprocess starting at step 405.

Step 410 is analogous to step 305 from the process of FIG. 3. In step410, configuration information is received. As before, this is typicallydone through reading system configuration files, monitoring the networkand/or interactive entry at the outset of the process. This informationtypically includes network default data and risk criteria such as accesspoint configuration data (MAC Address of the access point, Access PointName, etc.), station configuration data and various thresholds values.

In step 430, a wireless packet frame is received from each input device(e.g., hardware components 210A-D, host system 220 and/or sensors 230A,230B). Frames are read so that the frame content can be interrogated.

Each read frame is interrogated by a multi-dimensional intrusiondetection system (IDS) such as detailed above with respect to FIG. 3,and the outputs of all IDS tests are then compared and a confidencelevel computed in step 435. As with the process above, other tests ineither alone, in combination with each other or in combination with oneor more of those described above may be used in other embodiments.

In step 440, in the case where only a statistical anomaly is detected,it is flagged as a lower level performance alert. In the case where, inaddition to the statistical anomaly, one of the other violations hasbeen detected, the alarm is elevated to an intrusion alarm and an alarmmanager is alerted in step 444. Other embodiments do not rely onaggregate test outcome but determine alarm status on single testoutcomes. Further, some embodiments can use other test types and outcomecombinations to determine type and severity of alarms generated.

If an alarm is not detected in step 440, a test to see if apredetermined interval for gathering statistics has been reached occursin step 460. If the end of the pre-configured statistics gatheringinterval has occurred, the SDS is updated in step 470 to reflect thestatistics gathered from the received frames over the interval.Statistics are gathered by monitoring traffic between network nodes,minute-by-minute statistics about BSS frame types and traffic volumes,summaries of transmission statistics for all stations associated withaccess points, current-minute transmission statistics for all Stations,and detailed minute-by-minute transmission statistics for any individualstation in the wireless computer network.

Data fusion occurs on a batch basis by aggregating data from multipledatabases. This process begins at step 414. The process integratesstatistical data from multiple databases that is generated through framemonitoring and intrusion detection engines. This approach provides amethodology for managing data received from input devices such ashardware devices 210A-D and/or sensors 230A, 230B deployed at multiplesites and for aggregating enterprise data at a single central systemsuch as host 220.

The Attack and Station Profile database is read at step 418 to begin aprocessing loop to integrate databases from separate sources.Correlation and pattern recognition is performed at step 420 to updatethe attack and station profiles in step 424. The processing loop thensleeps at step 428 until the next processing loop interval is to takeplace based on the pre-configured time interval or trigger.

After the alarm manager is signaled in step 444, the attack and stationprofile database is read in step 448; in this step, existing attacks arequeried and existing station security state is queried. In step 450,this data is compared to the newly generated alarm. If it issufficiently similar, no new external notification occurs in step 454.If it is not, a new notification message is generated in step 454 andconsole display and/or external messaging of the alarm occurs in step458.

In some embodiments, the scanning of air waves for network activity canbe adaptive in nature. In a typical configuration, wireless networkchannels are scanned for activity according to a predefined pattern.According to an adaptive approach, the predefined pattern can serve asan initial and/or baseline pattern. This pattern can then be adaptedbased upon actual activity in the scanned channels.

This mechanism allows the system to deterministically scan all wirelesschannels through time-based multiplexing while also allowing the systemto adaptively adjust the time spent on a given channel based on currentand past activity. A typical scenario would be to monitor a fixed set ofchannels and periodically perform a background scan of the remainingchannels; FIG. 14 depicts an example interface for configuring such abaseline or default scan pattern. If any activity is observed on achannel expected to be idle or unauthorized activity is discovered, thesystem adapts by adding this channel to its primary scanning pattern. Ifactivity then diminishes, this channel will be removed from the primaryscanning pattern and then scanned next during the background scanningmode. The system can utilize either pre-configured thresholds oruser-entered thresholds to determine the trigger point at which to startor stop dynamic monitoring of the channel. Additionally, automatedcontrols can be included that will lock onto the channel if a securityviolation has been detected per the underlying multi-dimensionalanalysis engine.

With reference to FIG. 11, the monitoring system is initialized in step1110. Initialization in step 1110 can include the FIG. 4 configurationprocess and/or the step 910 initialization in FIG. 9 as previouslydiscussed. After initialization, a primary network scan occurs accordingto a predetermined scan pattern in step 1115. A background scan canoccur after each primary network scan. Alternatively, as depicted, abackground scan may only occur based upon a particular trigger conditionsuch as random determination, after a certain number of primary scan orafter a certain time period has passed. A decision as to whether theparticular condition to trigger a background scan has occurred is madeat step 1120. In step 1125, the background scan occurs. A determinationis then made in step 1130 as to whether an unauthorized device has beendetected during the background scan. If not, processing continues atstep 1115 with a primary network scan.

If a device was detected, the scan pattern for the primary network isadapted in step 1135. This modified scan pattern is then used forscanning the wireless channels in step 1140. As above, background scanscan occur after each such modified scan, or as depicted, can occuraccording to a trigger condition. In step 1145, a determination if fewerunauthorized devices were identified in the modified scan. If so, adetermination is then made as to whether any unauthorized devices arestill being detected in step 1165. If no unauthorized devices are stillbeing detected, the scan pattern is reset to the predetermined originalscan pattern at step 1170 and processing continues with a primary scanat step 1115. If some unauthorized devices are still being detected, thescan pattern is modified accordingly in step 1135 and processingcontinues with step 1140.

If fewer devices were not found in step 1145, a determination is made asto whether a background scan should occur in step 1150. If not,processing continues with a further modified scan at step 1140. If so,at step 1155, the background scan occurs. A determination is made instep 1160 as to whether a previously unidentified unauthorized devicehas been detected. If so, the scan pattern is modified accordingly instep 1135 and processing continues with step 1140. If not, theprocessing continues with step 1140.

Those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that the describedprocess is exemplary and that the steps described need not occur in theexact order described but can proceed logically in other apparentorderings. For instance, the background scan determination loop in themodified scan portion of the flow could as readily occur before thefewer device determination step as after. Additional order alterationsshould be apparent and are contemplated within the scope of the presentinvention.

Further, enhanced embodiments may utilize multi-channel receivers inwhich adaptive scanning may occur uniquely per receiver. This allows,for example, multiple channels or multiple frequency bands to be scannedand monitored in parallel.

As described above, systems and methods according to the presentinvention can automatically generate alarms whenever certain events orconditions occur within your wireless network. In some embodiments, analarm manager providing an interface for viewing can be provided; suchan interface is described in greater detail in co-pending U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/381,829 entitled “SYSTEMS ANDMETHODS FOR NEWTORK SECURITY” filed May 20, 2002. The following tableidentifies the alarms, alarm subtypes and severities available in onepreferred embodiment referred to as AirDefense Mobile.

Alarm Alarm Type Alarm Subtype Level DoS Attack De-authenticate CriticalAirDefense Mobile detects when a hacker pretends to be an Access pointand broadcasts a “de-authenticate” message. This forces all Stations tore-authenticate themselves, generating excessive network traffic, andcausing inconsistent connectivity and data transfer. DisassociateCritical AirDefense Mobile detects when a hacker pretends to be anAccess point and broadcasts a “disassociate” message. This forces allStations to re-associate themselves with the Access Point, generatingexcessive network traffic, and causing inconsistent connectivity anddata transfer. Unauthorized Not on allow list Critical StationAirDefense Mobile detects a Station whose MAC address is not on itsValid list. (A Valid list is maintained by the system.) Threshold GLBCRC errors Major AirDefense Mobile detects if CRC errors exceededconfigured limits (CRC errors are generated when checksums fail onindividual frames.) BSS assoc count Major AirDefense Mobile detects whenthe number of associations within an entire BSS, in any given minute,exceed the number specified in configuration information BSS signalstrength Critical AirDefense Mobile detects when the signal strength inany access point falls below a specified threshold. BSS fragments MinorAirDefense Mobile detects when the number of fragmented frames withinany minute exceed a specified threshold. BSS decrypt errors MajorAirDefense Mobile detects when the number of decrypt error frames withinany minute exceed a specified threshold. BSS assoc stations MinorAirDefense Mobile detects when the total number of associated Stationswithin an entire BSS, in any given minute, exceed a specified number.BSS tbw in Minor AirDefense Mobile detects when, during any minute, thenumber of bytes of data entering the BSS from the wired portion of yournetwork exceed a set threshold. BSS tbw out Minor AirDefense Mobiledetects when, during any minute, the total number of bytes of data goingfrom the BSS to a wired portion of your network exceed a set threshold.BSS tbw intra Minor AirDefense Mobile detects when, during any minute,the total number of bytes of data originating from and destined for theBSS exceed a specified threshold. BSS tbw thru Minor AirDefense Mobiledetects when, during any minute, the total number of bytes of dataoriginating from a wired portion of the network hop through the BSS toanother wired portion of the network exceed a set threshold. BSS dataMajor AirDefense Mobile detects when, during any minute, the totalnumber of data frames in the BSS exceed a specified threshold. BSS mgtMajor AirDefense Mobile detects when, during any minute, the totalnumber of management frames in the BSS exceed a specified threshold. BSSctl Major AirDefense Mobile detects when, during any minute, the totalnumber of control frames in the BSS exceed a set threshold. BSS ad hocCritical AirDefense Mobile detects when, during any minute, the totalnumber of Ad Hoc frames in the BSS exceed a specified threshold. Note:Wireless network adaptor cards of lesser quality will randomly generateAd Hoc frames. AirDefense Mobile's default threshold (1) may cause allof these spurious frames to generate an alarm. After monitoring thenetwork for a week or two, it may be advisable to set the threshold to anumber at or a little higher than what the network normally generates.STA assoc count Major AirDefense Mobile detects, during any minute, whenany Station associates with an access point more times than provided bya specified threshold. STA signal strength Critical AirDefense Mobiledetects, during any minute, when any station's signal strength fallsbelow a value specified. STA fragments Minor AirDefense Mobile detects,during any minute, when any station generates more fragmented framesthan a specified value. STA decrypt errors Major AirDefense Mobiledetects, during any minute, when any station generates more decrypterrors than a set threshold. STA tbw received Minor AirDefense Mobiledetects, within any minute, when any station receives more bytes of datathan a predetermined threshold. STA tbw transmitted Minor AirDefenseMobile detects, within any minute, when any station transmits more bytesof data than specified in a set threshold. STA data received MajorAirDefense Mobile detects, within any minute, when any station receivesmore data frames than a specified threshold. STA data transmitted MajorAirDefense Mobile detects, within any minute, when any station transmitsmore data frames than a specified threshold. STA mgt received MajorAirDefense Mobile detects, within any minute, when any station receivesmore management frames than a specified threshold. STA mgt transmittedMajor AirDefense Mobile detects, within any minute, when any stationtransmits more management frames than a set threshold. STA ctl receiveMajor AirDefense Mobile detects, within any minute, when any stationreceives more control frames than a specified threshold. STA ctltransmit Major AirDefense Mobile detects, within any minute, when anystation transmits more control frames than a set threshold. ID Theft Outof sequence Critical AirDefense Mobile detects when frames aretransmitted out of sequence. This suggests that someone has spoofed aStation and is sending data at the same time as the legitimate Station.Vendor out of character Critical AirDefense Mobile compares everyStation's transmissions against an internal database of known vendor“transmission profiles” or “signatures.” If the actual network trafficdoes not match the vendor-profile associated with the Station's WirelessNIC, AirDefense Mobile assumes that the traffic originates from anunauthorized station using a spoofed NIC. Anomalous signal strengthCritical AirDefense Mobile tracks the high, low, and mean signalstrength of each station many times a minute throughout the day.Whenever it detects that the Station's signal strength deviates from thenorm, it generates an alarm. Access Point WEP mode changed Critical ModeAirDefense Mobile detects when the WEP value in an access point's beacondiffers from the value it is supposed to be. (AirDefense Mobileauto-detected the WEP property, or it was manually entered.) Ratechanged Critical AirDefense Mobile detects when the supportedtransmission rate values in an access point's beacon differs from thevalue it is supposed to be. (AirDefense Mobile auto-detected the rateproperty, or it was manually entered.) Channel changed CriticalAirDefense Mobile detects whenever an access point changes channels.(The channel is identified in configuration information.) Cf changedAirDefense Mobile detects when the Point Coordination value in an AP'sbeacon changes. A change in this field may indicate that the accesspoint was reconfigured, though this is not necessarily a problem. (ThePoint Coordination field refers to the access point's mode of collisionavoidance.) Essid changed AirDefense Mobile detects when the accesspoint's broadcast of its Extended BSS ID changes. The ESSID informationis stored as configuration information. Unauthorized AirDefense Mobiledetects when administration sessions are Critical AP Admin beingconducted directly with the access point. Odd Mgt. Sta tx ap mgt frCritical Frame AirDefense Mobile detects when a Station is transmittinga management frame reserved for access point's use. Ap tx illegal mgt frCritical AirDefense Mobile detects when an access point transmits anillegal management frame. Out of spec frame Critical AirDefense Mobiledetects when an access point transmits a frame that does not follow802.11b standards. Other bogus frame Critical AirDefense Mobile detectswhen an access point transmits any frame it does not understand. Ad HocNet AirDefense Mobile detects when Stations are directly CriticalDetected transmitting and receiving to and from each other without usingan authorized access point. Note: Unlike all other alarms that aregenerated every time the network event is detected within a minute,AirDefense Mobile will only generate an Ad Hoc Network alarm once in thecurrent 24 hour period for each MAC address. AP Beacon AirDefense Mobiledetects when an access point's beacon rate Critical Rate changed.

The present systems and methods allow an end-user to specify andimplement the security and policy constraints associated with aparticular wireless network deployment. Once configured with suchinformation, the network activity is monitored on a continuous basis todetermine if the activity is within the guidelines specified by theestablished constraints.

If the activity is found to not be in compliance with the establishedconstraints, a real-time alarm is generated and reported to the userthrough a number of mechanisms. These mechanisms can include Web, Email,SNMP and Syslog notification. In some embodiments, the response is notlimited to notification. These embodiments can include automatedenforcement and/or active defensive measures as discussed below.

Automated Policy Enforcement

Some embodiments support automated enforcement of constraints including,without limitation, thresholds and/or alarms. In such embodiments,attempts to rectify the policy deviation through re-configuration of theaffected device or devices can occur automatically upon detection of thedeviation. This reconfiguration attempts to implement the specifiedpolicy within the relevant devices.

This process can be viewed as a form of a feedback control loop. In manycases, such a loop operates by comparing a reference input to a measuredoutput, computing their difference, and using this difference to adjustthe desired output. This continues to drive the desired output tocompliance with the reference input.

FIG. 10 depicts an exemplary process that includes automated policyenforcement. An initialization step occurs to retrieve expected normsand configure data monitoring processes in step 1010. Normal monitoringof network activity occurs in steps 1020. The monitored activity ischecked for compliance with established constraints in step 1030. If aviolation was not detected, processing continues at step 1020.

If a constraint is violated, a notification (alert) can be generated andforwarded to a user and/or other systems (not shown). Such notificationscan, in some embodiments, include information regarding the violationand/or one or more links that upon activation: (1) cause the display ofinformation regarding the violation, (2) cause the activation of aninteractive interface via which a user can attempt to manually rectifyand/or manage the violation and/or (3) cause automatic attempts towholly, or partially, rectify the violation. The notification can besent via any suitable delivery platform as provided hereinabove withrespect to alerts in general.

If a violation was detected, normal monitoring for additional violationscan continue as depicted by simultaneously returning to step 1020 aswell as proceeding to step 1040; alternatively, normal monitoring couldbe suspended until handling of the detected violation is complete.

The violation will typically have associated with it a set of one ormore wireless network attributes. A procedure associated with thedetected violation, and/or the attributes associated therewith, istriggered that attempts to manually, semi-automatically or automaticallyrectify the underlying cause of the violation. At step 1040 acommunication channel is established with one or more devices associatedwith the detected violation, and/or the attributes associated with thedetected violation. Commands to rectify the detected violation can thenbe sent to impacted devices in step 1050. The commands sent will dependat least in part upon the detected violation and/or the attributesassociated therewith. At this point, the process may end in someembodiment.

Some embodiment may further make a determination as to whether thereconfiguration attempt was successful in step 1060. In some suchembodiments, the determination may include a determination of a successlevel indicating partial handling of the violation. Based upon theoutcome of the determination, some embodiments may make further attemptsto correct, or complete the correction of, the violation throughadditional attempts to reconfigure the same or different devices as inthe previous correction attempts. Step 1070 represents a decision as towhether further attempts should be made. This decision may rest on anumber of factors including, without limitation, number of correctionattempts, degree of success of prior attempts, appearance of additionalissues resulting from prior attempts, etc.

If the attempt to enforce the policy is successful or unsuccessful,status information concerning the network can be updated in step 1080.For instance, if the procedure successfully, or partially successfully,rectifies the cause of the violation, any triggered alert or alerts canbe cancelled, updated or otherwise modified to indicate the presentstatus of the violation.

These steps can be executed upon a system processor or can be stored asexecutable instructions upon or across one or more computer readablemedia. Data used by the steps can be stored within the SDS describedabove. The communication channel established with the one or moredevices can be made through one or more communication interfaces; suchcommunication interfaces can be network interfaces, serial or parallelinterfaces (e.g., USB, etc.), modem, or other suitable communicationinterface allowing communication between the system processor and thedevice.

Automatic resolution of the policy violation can employ a management andcontrol interface on the monitored equipment to effect the desiredchange. This interface may be in the form of an HTTP, HTTPS, SNMP orvendor-specific command line interface reachable via Telnet, SSH oranother remote login interface; in addition, or instead, alternativeinterfaces could be provided via automated voice and/or tone recognitionsystems for handling telephone based configuration of the environment.Multiple such interfaces could be simultaneously available. An exampleWeb-based interface is depicted in FIGS. 13A1, 13A1 a, 13A2, 13B1 and13B2.

Active Defense

In some embodiments of the present invention, one or more active defensemechanisms may be triggered in response to alarm conditions, in additionto, or instead of, the notification process described above. The systemmay provide active defense from attacks by broadcasting data into thewireless network as well as being able to trap and/or map an intruder'sworkstation by triangulating the position of the intruder's workstationrelative to the wireless network access points. It also may attemptalter the access point configuration in a manner that makes it difficultor impossible for the targeted attacker to continue communications.

By introducing CRC errors into the wireless stream, the system canactively defeat an attacker that is monitoring the stream for patternsto crack the encryption. CRC errors are introduced by transmitting atthe same time as the detected intruder. Due the shared medium nature ofthe wireless computer network, the cause the packet transmission to becorrupted, preventing the intruder from successfully communicating withthe network.

By introducing chaf, the system can actively defeat the attacker byplacing random frames into the stream so that the encryption patternbecomes undetectable. Chaf is a form of randomized packet transmissionthat is designed to reduce the probability that a statistical analysisof the packet sequence would result in breaking of the encryption key.This is done by emitting a low-rate background transmission of packetsthat are emitted using the same characteristics (e.g., address,initialization vector, etc.) of legitimately observed traffic but with arandomized payload.

In addition, an active defensive measure can include de-authorizing awireless station or access point, disabling a selected access point'swireless transceiver, and/or alerting an external network managementsystem or an associated network component. In de-authorizing a wirelessstation or access point, the anomalous or unauthorized station or accesspoint is removed from the set of authorized wireless network components.In the case of disabling an access point's transceiver, a particularaccess point identified as unauthorized or providing access tounauthorized stations can have its wireless transceiver disabled inorder to block further intrusion. In the case of alerting an externalnetwork management system or an associated network component, the activedefense measure involves coordination and data exchange between anattacked network and a central management system or component. Thisallows detection of higher level patterns in attempted intrusion. Suchan alert could be transmitted in any suitable format including withoutlimitation SNMP or an XML formatted alert.

Some embodiments may also include an adaptive location trackingcomponent that locates and tracks identified stations and access points.In the case of unauthorized stations and access points, the detectionand tagging for location tracking can be another form of active defense.

The system can lock-down a wireless network by jamming, a technique toprevent any unauthorized access to the wireless access point byintroducing enough noise into the wireless network that workstationscannot physically connect to the wireless network. Jamming is a physicallayer transmission that is performed to disrupt all unwanted wirelesscommunications. It is equivalent to introducing a noise signal on top ofthe unwanted signal transmission such that any receiver would not beable to successfully receive the transmission.

The system can also lock-down a wireless network through logical jammingor disruption. In this case, unauthorized access is prevented throughdisruption at the communications protocol layer. This is done via use ofstandard network management, control and data messages.

In a Physical Device approach, one embodiment would utilize a standalonesensor to implement any of the Active Defense mechanisms. Dynamicchannel change can be used to reroute authorized traffic to a differentcommunication channel to avoid an intruder detected on a particularchannel. In this approach, a channel change request is transmitted tothe access point believed to be compromised and authorized stations usethe new channel to communicate with the access point. This approach canalso be used to avoid interference causing problems in communicationbetween an access point and its authorized stations.

Some embodiments including dynamic channel change may further use ahoneypot trap that tricks the attacker into thinking the originalchannel is still valid and provides the necessary forensic informationto identify the attacker. FIG. 5 depicts a flow chart of a processstarting at step 510 used in some such embodiment incorporating thehoneypot trap.

In step 520, configuration information is received. This step is muchthe same as previously described steps 305 and 410 in FIGS. 3 and 4respectively. Step 530 represents a waiting loop that waits until anattack has been detected. Typically, an intrusion detection systemgenerates a signal that triggers departure from this loop; in somepreferred embodiments, the intrusion detection system contains thehardware and/or executes the process described above. The signal fromthe intrusion detection system typically includes an indicator of theaccess point believed to be under attack.

In the case that an attack has been detected in 530, processing ispassed to step 540 to activate the honeypot trap. A trap thread isstarted in step 580; the thread initializes itself with the identity ofthe monitored access point believed to be attacked. This identitytypically includes the MAC address, Service Set Identifier, encryptionmode, network mode and transmission modes. Once initialized, the threadmoves to step 590, the Trap Intruder process. This process is designedto logically fool the identifier attacker into believing communicationis still occurring with the original access point. This is accomplishedthrough complete emulation of the original access point's identity andbehavior. By maintaining communication with the attacker, a trap iscreated such that the attacker's physical proximity is assured as longas communication continues. Optionally, a new identity may be assumedsuch that a weaker or more vulnerable appearing access point can bepresented to the attacker. This is done by again emulating access pointfunctionality, but in this case with an identity and set ofcharacteristics that appear vulnerable. This vulnerability appearancemay be created through the use of no or weak encryption modes or theappearance of default manufacturing modes with known passwords and userIDs.

In step 550 a control packet is sent to the original access point tochange channels or suspend transmission while the trap is engaged. Thispacket encapsulates a message indicating the above request and may besent in or out-of-band to the access point. In-band refers toover-the-air transmission to the access point's wireless networkinterface whereas out-of-band transmission refers to transmission to thewired side interface of the access point.

Processing in the main loop then returns to attack detection in 530.

In response to alarm activity or manual operation intervention, locationtracking may be enabled to estimate the position of the desired device.This estimation is based upon receive signal characteristics and mayinclude but is not limited to estimation based on time of arrival,differential time of arrival, angle of arrival or signal strength.

In some embodiments, triangulation determines the location of anattacker by mapping her relative position within the deployed wirelessaccess points. The mapping and location detection process according toone or more preferred embodiments of the present invention as depictedin FIGS. 6A-B are discussed in greater detail below.

The process of FIG. 6A is used to create an internal database of IPaddresses and/or names mapped to corresponding MAC addresses. EveryAddress Resolution Protocol (ARP) transaction is detected in step 605.In step 610, the information in the detected transaction is used toupdate the internal database. Some embodiments can perform theidentification and location processing such as depicted in FIG. 6Bwithout reference to such an internal database. This database is createdand maintained in one preferred embodiment to make the stationidentification and location process easier and more efficient.

FIG. 6B depicts a process for identifying and locating a station withinthe wireless network. In some embodiments, this process can be used topinpoint the location of a potential attacker; in some such embodiments,activation of the process is triggered by an intrusion detection system.In a preferred embodiment, the process is triggered by one of theintrusion detection systems and methods described in detail above.

In step 620, a lookup occurs in the internal database, such as createdvia the process depicted in FIG. 6A, on the current MAC address todetermine if an IP or name mapping is already available. If found, theinternal database is updated in step 640 and execution proceeds to step645 to query the wireless sensor array—to begin position or locationresolution. As indicated above, the internal database is one approach toacquiring the desired information. Some embodiments may skip this stepand use either the wired network sensor or the reverse addressresolution protocol (RARP) approach discussed below.

Otherwise, an optional wired network sensor can be queried for the namemapping in step 625. This sensor is preferably deployed within the wirednetwork at a location convenient to sniffing DHCP, LDAP, DNS or otherservice/name mapping protocols. If found, the internal database isupdated in step 640 and execution proceeds to step 645 to query thewireless sensor array—to begin position or location resolution. Someembodiments may not include such a wired network sensor; in which casethis step is skipped.

If name is still not found, execution proceeds to step 630 where a RARPrequest is issued. This request asks the receiver population for the IPaddress of the MAC address in question. If found, the internal databaseis updated in step 640 and execution proceeds to step 645 to query thewireless sensor array—to begin position or location resolution.

If not found, name/IP mapping is not available at current time for thisMAC address. In some embodiments, name/IP mapping may not be desired butlocation or position information is in which case the process can beginin such embodiments at step 645.

Step 645 begins the position or location resolution with a query to thewireless sensor array. Each sensor is queried for tracking informationon the current MAC address in question. This tracking informationidentifies whether the MAC is currently observable by a given sensor,the sensor ID, and the signal strength associated with the MAC inquestion. The sensor array may include not only sensor devices (e.g.,230A, 230B) but also other wireless nodes accessible from this processsuch as devices 210A-D and/or host system 220.

From the data received via the query, the position relative to grid ofsensors is calculated in step 650 by computing the “signal strength”distance to each sensor. This distance is computed as the square root ofthe sum of squares of three sensor signal strength values. The positionis then estimated to be within the proximity of the sensors determinedto have the smallest signal strength distance to the MAC address inquestion per the above computation. Once the set of sensors is selected,the position is further refined by selected the position as within theproximity of the sensor within above set with the strongest signalstrength. In some embodiments, the process ends at this point with theposition information being returned.

In embodiments maintaining a position database, this database is updatedin step 660 with the position of the MAC address in question. Theprocess then ends at step 670.

In some embodiments, location tracking can be adaptive in nature. Tofacilitate the estimation and tracking of user location based uponpre-configured or dynamically determined criteria. This mechanismutilizes the sensor-based monitoring infrastructure to derive estimatesof position based upon received signal characteristics.

In pre-configured mode, a static list of device identifiers representingthe objects to be tracked is maintained within the system data store. Asone or more of these devices become visible to the monitoringinfrastructure, location tracking is automatically enabled and positionestimates are automatically calculated and made available via themanagement, reporting and notification subsystems.

In adaptive mode, the tracking and position estimation of a given objectis based upon some combination of operational and security assessmentsthat the system automatically derives and assesses. These criteria maybe based on time, traffic level, threat level, protocol characteristics,usage characteristics, etc. Once tracking has been engaged, it may beadapted based on continued monitoring of these criteria. Tracking may beengaged on a full-time basis, sampled periodically or ramped off overtime. The level of tracking detail may also be varied dynamicallydepending on the above criteria, which can be used to drive the level oftracking granularity associated with a particular device.

Encrypted Network Analysis and Management

The techniques utilized to monitor WLANs can apply in general tomonitoring and analyzing any network link using encryption of thepayload or at the IP layer and above rather than just WLANs. In thiscase, Layer 1 and Layer 2 are observed and decisions made at theselayers in terms of signature, protocol, policy and statistical anomalyanalysis to assess network health and security. This technique is thusapplicable to any network (wired or wireless) exhibiting the aboveencryption characteristics of the network traffic. In other words, themulti-dimensional IDS implemented per our framework is more broadlyapplicable to managing and securing any encrypted network. In this case,a WLAN running WEP is one particular instance of an encrypted network.

Throughout this application, various publications may have beenreferenced. The disclosures of these publications in their entiretiesare hereby incorporated by reference into this application in order tomore fully describe the state of the art to which this inventionpertains.

The examples described above are given as illustrative only. It will bereadily appreciated by those skilled in the art that many deviations maybe made from the specific examples disclosed above without departingfrom the scope of the inventions set forth in this application.

1. A method for adaptively scanning wireless network channels, themethod comprising the steps of: (a) receiving scan data based upon ascan of a plurality of wireless network channels according to a scanningpattern, wherein each wireless network channel in the plurality ofwireless network channels has a designation of primary or secondary,wherein at least one channel of the plurality of wireless networkchannels is designated as a secondary channel and wherein the scanningpattern is determined based upon the designation associated with eachwireless network channel in the plurality of wireless network channels;(b) determining whether anomalous activity is present on a selectedwireless network channel designated as secondary based upon the receivedscan data; and (c) if anomalous activity is determined to be present onthe selected wireless network channel, adapting the scanning pattern byaltering at least one monitoring parameter associated with the selectedwireless network channel.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thedetermining step comprises the step of comparing actual activity levelfrom the received scan data with an activity level threshold.
 3. Themethod of claim 2, and further comprising the step of determining theactivity level threshold.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the step ofdetermining the activity level threshold comprises the step ofdetermining the activity level threshold based upon configuration data,historical data regarding channel activity or combinations thereof. 5.The method of claim 1, wherein the adapting step comprises the step ofaltering the monitoring time amount for the selected wireless networkchannel.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the adapting step furthercomprises generating a change amount based upon the received scan data,wherein the change amount is used to perform the step of altering themonitoring time amount for the selected wireless channel.
 7. The methodof claim 1, and further comprising the step of initiating a defensiveaction, if anomalous activity is determined to be present.
 8. The methodof claim 7, wherein the step of initiating a defensive action comprisesthe step of transmitting a notification to a user, to a computer systemor to both.
 9. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of initiating adefensive action comprises the step of initiating at least one defensiveaction selected from the group consisting of: (i) jamming wirelesstransmissions; (ii) CRC errors; (iii) transmitting frames comprisingrandom data; (iv) locking-down the wireless computer network; (v)activating a honeypot defense; (vi) de-authorizing a wireless station oraccess point; (vii) initiating dynamic location tracking with respect toa wireless station or access point; (viii) disabling a selected accesspoint's wireless transceiver; and (ix) alerting external a networkmanagement system or an associated network component.
 10. The method ofclaim 9, wherein the initiated defensive action is alerting anassociated network component and wherein the associated networkcomponent is a router, a bridge or a switch.
 11. The method of claim 1,and further comprising transmitting a notification to a user, to acomputer system or to both.
 12. The method of claim 1, and furthercomprising the step of scanning the plurality of wireless networkchannels according to the scanning pattern one or more times to generatescan data.
 13. The method of claim 12, and further comprising the stepof repeating the scanning, receiving, determining, and adapting steps aplurality of times.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein the repeatingstep occurs periodically over time based upon length of scan time, timeperiod configuration data, historical network activity data, currentnetwork activity data, security threat level data or combinationsthereof.
 15. The method of claim 12, wherein the scanning of theplurality of wireless network channels is performed in parallel withrespect to at least two channels in the plurality of wireless networkchannels.
 16. The method of claim 12, wherein the scanning step occurs aplurality of times to generate the scan data.
 17. The method of claim 1,and further comprising the step of repeating the receiving, determining,and adapting steps a plurality of times.
 18. The method of claim 1,wherein the adapting step is based upon time, traffic activity or threatlevel.
 19. The method of claim 1, wherein and at least one channel ofthe plurality of wireless network channels is designated as a primarychannel.
 20. A system for adaptively scanning wireless network channels,the system comprising: (a) a system data store capable of storinginformation relating to a plurality of wireless network channels and ascanning pattern; and (b) a system processor comprising one or moreprocessing elements, wherein the system process is in communication withthe system data store, and wherein the one or more processing elementsare programmed or adapted to perform steps comprising: (i) receivingscan data based upon a scan of a plurality of wireless network channelsaccording to a scanning pattern, wherein each wireless network channelin the plurality of wireless network channels has a designation ofprimary or secondary, wherein at least one channel of the plurality ofwireless network channels is designated as a secondary channel and atleast one other channel of the plurality of wireless network channels isdesignated as a primary channel and wherein the scanning pattern isdetermined based upon the designation associated with each wirelessnetwork channel in the plurality of wireless network channels; (ii)determining whether anomalous activity is present on a selected wirelessnetwork channel designated as secondary based upon the received scandata; and (iii) if anomalous activity is determined to be present on theselected wireless network channel, adapting the scanning pattern byaltering at least one monitoring parameter associated with the selectedwireless network channel based upon time, traffic activity, threat levelor combinations thereof and initiating at least one defensive actionselected from the group consisting of: (A) jamming wirelesstransmissions; (B) CRC errors; (C) transmitting frames comprising randomdata; (D) locking-down the wireless computer network; (E) activating ahoneypot defense; (F) initiating dynamic location tracking with respectto a wireless station or access point; (G) de-authorizing a wirelessstation or access point; (H) disabling a selected access point'swireless transceiver; and (I) alerting an external network managementsystem or an associated network component; and (iv) repeating steps (i)through (iii) a plurality of times.
 21. The system of claim 20, andfurther compromising a wireless receiver from which the system processorreceives the scan data, and wherein one or more processing elements ofthe system processor are further programmed or adapted to performthe-step comprising of initiating a scan of the wireless networkchannels according to the scanning pattern using the wireless receiverone or more times to generate the scan data.
 22. The system of claim 21,wherein the one or more processing elements programmed or adapted toinitiate the scan are programmed or adapted to initiate the scan aplurality of times in order to generate the scan data.
 23. The system ofclaim 20, and further comprising a plurality of wireless receivers fromwhich the system processor receives the scan data, wherein each of eachof the plurality of wireless receivers is capable of scanning adifferent wireless network channel simultaneously.
 24. One or morecomputer readable media that store instructions that upon execution by asystem processor cause the system processor to adaptively scan wirelessnetwork channel by performing steps comprising of: (a) receiving scandata based upon a scan of a plurality of wireless network channelsaccording to a scanning pattern, wherein each wireless network channelin the plurality of wireless network channels has a designation ofprimary or secondary, wherein at least one channel of the plurality ofwireless network channels is designated as a secondary channel and atleast one other channel of the plurality of wireless network channels isdesignated as a primary channel and wherein the scanning pattern isdetermined based upon the designation associated with each wirelessnetwork channel in the plurality of wireless network channels; (b)determining whether anomalous activity is present on a selected wirelessnetwork channel designated as secondary based upon the received scandata; and (c) if anomalous activity is determined to be present on theselected wireless network channel, adapting the scanning pattern byaltering at least one monitoring parameter associated with the selectedwireless network channel based upon time, traffic activity, threat levelor combinations thereof and initiating at least one defensive actionselected from the group consisting of: (i) jamming wirelesstransmissions; (ii) CRC errors; (iii) transmitting frames comprisingrandom data; (iv) locking-down the wireless computer network; (v)activating a honeypot defense; (vi) de-authorizing a wireless station oraccess point; (vii) initiating dynamic location tracking with respect toa wireless station or access point; (viii) disabling a selected accesspoint's wireless transceiver; and (ix) alerting external a networkmanagement system or an associated network component; and (d) repeatingsteps (a) through (c) a plurality of times.
 25. A system for adaptivelyscanning wireless network channels, the system comprising: (a) storingmeans for storing information relating to a plurality of wirelessnetwork channels and a scanning pattern; (b) receiving means forreceiving scan data based upon a scan of a plurality of wireless networkchannels according to a scanning pattern, wherein each wireless networkchannel in the plurality of wireless network channels has a designationof primary or secondary, wherein at least one channel of the pluralityof wireless network channels is designated as a secondary channel and atleast one other channel of the plurality of wireless network channels isdesignated as a primary channel and wherein the scanning pattern isdetermined based upon the designation associated with each wirelessnetwork channel in the plurality of wireless network channels; (c)anomalous activity detecting means for determining whether anomalousactivity is present on a selected wireless network channel designated assecondary based upon received scan data from the receiving means; and(d) anomalous activity response means for responsive to the anomalousactivity detecting means adapting the scanning pattern by altering atleast one monitoring parameter associated with the selected wirelessnetwork channel based upon time, traffic activity, threat level orcombinations thereof, for notifying a user or a computer system ofanomalous activity determined by the anomalous activity detecting means,and for initiating at least one defensive action selected from the groupconsisting of: (i) jamming wireless transmissions; (ii) CRC errors;(iii) transmitting frames comprising random data; (iv) locking-down thewireless computer network; (v) activating a honeypot defense; (vi)de-authorizing a wireless station or access point; (vii) initiatingdynamic location tracking with respect to a wireless station or accesspoint; (viii) disabling a selected access point's wireless transceiver;and (ix) alerting external a network management system or an associatednetwork component.